Boy With A Coin
Posted: August 14, 2017 Filed under: Clothes, Style Imitating Art | Tags: blue, navy boyfriend jeans, purple, purple tunic, red, red kitten heels, style imitating art 3 Comments
Sorry for the radio silence this past week. I had planned on posting something in the middle of the week, but then time got away from me, and I didn’t have anything interesting say anyway, so rather than to force a post, I decided to just take a break. Anyway, school is back next week, so hopefully I can have regular outfit posts again and the blog will be back on track.
Back to the matter at hand – here’s my outfit for this week’s SIA, inspired by Melissa McCracken‘s synesthetic painting. I had to admit, I picked this mainly because it’s such a beautiful piece. I had no idea what I was going to wear for it. By a stroke of luck, last week I went shopping with my sister and picked up a few new tops, including this lilac tunic (my sister called it “taro-colored”, which is quite accurate actually). Even though the color isn’t exactly right (the painting has more pink than purple), I thought the flowy silhouette would be a good fit for this. I paired it with my navy jeans and dark red heels to mimic the other colors in the painting. I thought about adding my yellow brooch as well, but it clashes with the purple. Besides, the tunic has some very pretty embroideries already, and I didn’t want to distract from them, so I figured this would do, even if it’s not as close to the painting as I’d like.
So that’s it for me. I’m probably going to post the round-up on Wednesday, so you still have until tomorrow to send me your outfits. Get to it!
Summer Flowers
Posted: July 31, 2017 Filed under: Clothes, Style Imitating Art | Tags: black sandals, blue, bracelet, distressed boyfriend jeans, white, white watercolor tee 1 Comment
I almost decided not to participate in this SIA, because one, I’ve been stuck at home all month, working in my pajamas, so there is no reason to dress up, two, it’s been raining almost all month, and three, I have no idea what to wear.The most noticeable color in the photo Erin picked is purple, and I don’t have anything purple.
But as luck would have it, the rain stopped and I had a couple of errands to run this past weekend, so I had the excuse to wear something marginally dressier than my ratty old tee and pajama pants. I picked the light blue jeans, black sandals, and silver cuff to mimic the background of the photo, and my floral printed t-shirt, while not exact, is a pretty good interpretation of the tulips in the photo, if I do say so myself.
It’s been a stressful summer. On the one hand, I am so ready for it to end so I can start wearing actual clothes and put the blog back into shape (cooler weather would be nice, too). On the other hand, I have so much left to do with all of my side projects that I know I would be overwhelmed once the school year starts again. Well, I have until August 21 to at least finish some of them, so I guess I’d better shape up.
Don’t forget to stop by Erin’s blog to see other interpretations of this photo!
Homecoming
Posted: July 14, 2017 Filed under: Book/Movie/TV Reviews, Clothes | Tags: blue, movie, navy skirt, red, red slingbacks, white, white striped tee 1 Comment
As much as I love to spend my entire day in my pajamas, there always comes a time when I feel sick of looking like a schlub. Well, friends, this is that time. After nearly a month of working from home, I just want to dress up for no reason at all, so I did. Although, I didn’t exactly dress up for no reason – I did wear this to see Spider-Man: Homecoming. And yes, I was kinda coordinating my color scheme with the red-and-blue scheme of a Spider-Man costume. At first I was only going to wear the t-shirt, but then I noticed this lace collar and thought, Hey, that kinda looks like spider web, so I added that too. This looks like something I would wear about five years ago – I haven’t worn a Peter Pan collar in so long – but I quite like it.
I quite liked the movie as well. It’s definitely the first movie that manages to make Spider-Man seem like an actual teenager and capture his smartass humor (The Amazing Spider-Man made a stab at the humor too, but Andrew Garfield ended up more smug than smartass. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man didn’t even try.) On the flipside, it also means that the movie is more like a high school comedy and less like a superhero film, but that’s OK. At least it’s not another freaking origin story.
Wine Country Mural
Posted: June 19, 2017 Filed under: Clothes, Style Imitating Art | Tags: blue, brown, brown flat sandals, hot-air balloon shirt, style imitating art, tan wide-leg pants 2 Comments
I had quite a hard time figuring out what to wear for this week’s SIA, inspired by a mural in Sonoma, CA. It’s super colorful, and you know that I don’t do colors, so what to do? Then I looked more closely at the mural and noticed that the painting of the town inside the word “Sonoma” features a hot-air balloon. Aha! I have a hot-air balloon shirt that is quite colorful, and there I had the base for my outfit. I was thinking of wearing my gray pants to mimic the background of the mural, but I already paired them together, so I ended up with these pants (the second time I’ve worn them for an SIA challenge) and my flat sandals to mimic the roof and the buildings in the mural. A bit of a stretch, to be sure, but I like it. Plus, it looks like the kind of outfit you’d wear on vacation to Sonoma (Erin, can you confirm?), so mission accomplished.
And speaking of vacation, I’m leaving later this week for a week-long family trip in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. We went Da Lat a couple of years ago, which is also a part of the Central Highlands, but this time we’re checking out a different town, so it’s pretty exciting. I’m still going post my SIA inspiration as usual, but other than that, I’ll see you guys next week!
Accessory Slump
Posted: June 16, 2017 Filed under: Book/Movie/TV Reviews, Clothes | Tags: black pumps, blue, bracelet, navy boyfriend jeans, peach t-shirt, pink Leave a comment
On Wednesday’s post, I talked about feeling unmotivated to put together an interesting outfit. I think part of the reason is that I’m bored with my accessories (but don’t want to buy new ones) and don’t know how else to jazz up my outfits. Scarves are out of the question; light-weight, summery shirts don’t hold up brooches well, and sometimes you have to choose between necklaces and printed shirts. Occasionally, I would bring out my bracelet/cuff, but it always feels forced and doesn’t go well with the outfit at all – like here. Actually I wasn’t planning on wearing this cuff with this outfit, but then I was going to see Wonder Woman after work, and since I don’t have a tiara or lasso or invisible jet, I decided to play homage by wearing the cuff.
As for the movie… weeeeeeeeeeell, I’m going to be the unpopular opinion here and say that I wasn’t impressed. I think I got overhyped on it – everybody is gushing about how great it is – so I ended up underwhelmed. Sure, I appreciate the fact that it’s a female superhero movie, and I’m happy that it’s directed by a woman, but it’s… kind of boring, to be honest. I think the praises come from the fact that the bar for DC movies is set so low and this is the first decent female superhero movie (like, first ever), so it is just the thing that people want right now. It may be an important first step toward more diversity and equality in the genre, but it didn’t change my mind about the DC Extended Universe. I’m going to stick with Marvel, thank you every much. (I mean in terms of superhero movies in general. I know the portrayal of female characters in Marvel films is problematic. If I want an action film with good female characters, I’ll go with Mad Max: Fury Road.)
That doesn’t stop me from doing a Wonder Woman pose though…
Unmotivated
Posted: June 14, 2017 Filed under: Clothes | Tags: black, black oxfords, blue, brooch, navy gingham button-up, navy pants 1 Comment
These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago – with the semester winding down and the crazy weather, I haven’t been taking outfit photos as frequently as I like do. Plus, I’ve been feeling a distinct lack of motivation to come up with an interesting outfit. The other day, I spent about an hour before bed trying to decide what to wear and ended up thinking, What the hell, I’m just going to spend the entire day grading papers anyway, so I just threw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Functional, but not exactly blog-worthy.
I’m sure I’ll get over this rut sooner or later, but it’s a bit frustrating in the meantime. My fellow style bloggers – what do you guys do when you’re in a style rut?
Cooling Effect
Posted: June 7, 2017 Filed under: Clothes | Tags: black, black pumps, blue, navy ikat shirt, navy pants 4 Comments
We’re in a grip of a record-breaking heatwave here in Hanoi (the heat index has been hovering around 120F every day since last Wednesday). It seems I’ve been saying that every summer, but then again every summer they told us the heatwave was breaking another record. I guess that’s global warming for you. This outfit was from last week, when it was still blessedly cool, and I was hoping that the blue color would have some cooling effect – for me at least. The heat is so bad that I can’t even bear to look at warm colors right now.
