I did it. I managed to get my hands on one of the best shoes of Fall! I had to go and break my no-more-black-shoes rule for these amazing ankle boots. It’s made me start to think hard about my goal to wear/buy less black and more color. It raises a question of self vs. sentiment; namely, is love (in this case, of clothes) a feeling that occurs on it’s own, or does it stem from an intellectual, cognitive process in which you choose to love something? Though it might seem like an odd idea to “choose” what to love, it makes more sense if you think about it, loving something without thinking about why you love it is akin to being a “fanatic of desire,” to quote David Foster Wallace. I’m tempted, as I generally am, to think that it may be a little of both, that, though liking a piece of clothing should have a conceptual argument, the basest foundations have such a deep-rooted psychological basis that the feeling I have towards clothes that I can’t attribute it to higher-order analysis alone. So, while I can list forms, materials, textures, and cuts as ideas that I have thought about and come to conclusions about, there are certain things I like that I’m rather unable to explain.
Of course, clothes may be entirely too frivolous to be thinking about them in as conceptual a way as I sometimes find myself thinking about them, but that’s a different story altogether.

Soundtrack of the day: aNYway by Duck Sauce
Wearing: Rick Owens poncho sweater, Reiss top, vintage leather skirt, Proenza Schouler ankle boots

xx,
Lauren

I love the brisk fall weather we’re having right now, it’s finally cool enough to pull out my Rick Owens poncho sweater, which I love so dearly. It is a pretty big statement piece, but it’s definitely one of my favorite pieces of clothing. It’s nice to wear a big woolly sweater to wrap up in when it’s windy. I couldn’t resist the chance to wear it with my new Stella McCartney’s. This is one of the busiest weeks of the quarter, so I find myself throwing whatever I have around on in the morning and running out the door.

Wearing: Rick Owens leather-sleeved poncho sweater, Uniqlo shirt, Cheap Monday jeans, Stella McCartney wedges
Soundtrack of the day: Lust for Life by Girls

I maaay be just using this as an excuse to post pictures of Dries Van Noten’s great, great clothes (his Francis Bacon-inspired color palette is to die for), but I just found out that he shares a birthday with me (May 12th)!! Forget having the same birthday as a celebrity (couldn’t really care less), sharing a birthday with one of my favorite designers is WAY better! Why I didn’t know this earlier was a complete mystery to me, and it made me curious to see when other designers’ birthdays were. So I’ve thrown together a little list of designers’ birthdays. It’s actually sort of difficult to find birthdays for designers, especially less well-known ones (I can’t for the life of me figure out Junya Watanabe’s birthday. grrrrr….). But here’s what I’ve found! There seem to be a lot of designers with birthdays in April and August. Weird.So, do you share a birthday with an awesome fashion designers, or know of any designers’ birthdays? (Anyone know Alexander Wang’s birthday?!?!)

The list! (in chronological order):

Olivier Theyskens – Jan. 4th
Cristobal Balenciaga – Jan. 24th
Narcisco Rodriguez – Jan. 27th
John Galliano – Jan. 28th
Hubert de Givenchy – Feb. 20th
Helmut Lang – Mar. 10th
Alexander McQueen – Mar. 17th
Rick Owens – Apr. 6th
Vivienne Westwood – Apr. 8th
Marc Jacobs – Apr. 9th
Martin Margiela – Apr. 9th (wow, this is a gooood day to be born…)
Issey Miyake – Apr. 22nd
Miuccia Prada – May 10th
Valentino – May 11th
Dries Van Noten – May 12th
Esteban Cortazar – May 17th
Sonia Rykiel – May 25th
Christopher Kane – Jul. 26th
Yves Saint Laurent – Aug. 1st
Anna Sui – Aug. 4th
Charlotte Ronson – Aug. 7th
Hussein Chalayan – Aug. 12th
Coco Chanel – Aug. 19th
Gareth Pugh – Aug. 31st
Karl Lagerfeld – Sept. 10th
Stella McCartney – Sept. 13th
Donna Karan – Oct. 2nd
Yohji Yamamoto – Oct. 3rd
Rei Kawakubo – Oct. 11th
Jil Sander – Nov. 27th
Diane von Furstenberg – Dec. 31st
Ann Demeulemeester – (either Dec. 30th or 31st)