The Dressed Aesthetic

Posts Tagged“inspiration”

Through the Looking Glass

To me, there is something a little bit Lucille Ball, a little bit Dorothy, and a dash of Alice in Wonderland about this look, and I have to say I’m loving the combination! I knew the moment I met her that this silk stunner and I were going to have some fun together. Everything about this dress makes me happy. The gingham, the perfect puff sleeves, the full skirt complete with intact pellon (that paper-like lining in some vintage dresses to give shape). There are a lot of dresses in all of our wardrobes that we love for their practicality. This dress,…

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Lust List #3: Under the Sea

Given my love of the ocean, my simultaneous attraction to ocean-themed items should come as no surprise. Over the years, family members often gifted me all things shark. While I’ve grown away from the novelty t-shirts and figurines for the most part, I still love a bit (okay, a lot) of fishy goodness in my life. If you saw this post, you know I have plenty of undersea paraphernalia lurking in my wardrobe and this girl didn’t even break a sweat when tasked with styling my homemade shark dress.

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Wonder Woman State of Mind

I can’t lie – sometimes I derive power from my clothes. They give off a definite vibe and imbue me with a certain sass. For no reason other than it’s the place my whacky mind goes sometimes, there was something about the color scheme of today’s outfit that took me to Wonder Woman. I think we can all admit, that’s not a bad frame of mind to be in when charging into the fray.

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Shoe Lovers Not So Anonymous

Shoe Lovers Not So Anonymous - The Dressed Aesthetic

Life is short. BUY THE SHOES. It’s no secret that I love shoes. I have a relationship with my shoes, to the point where they cheer me up when I’m having a bad day and can just as easily bring me to the depths of despair. They listen to my woes, coddle my feet when they need coddling, and occasionally attack my tootsies with a torrent of blisters not known this side up of purgatory. But I always forgive them, so deep is our love for each other.

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The Truth About Neutrals

I am a frequent visitor of vintage stores (shocker, I know). I love the hunt, the feeling of discovery. My husband says I have a sixth sense and can sniff out the perfect dress in a sea of nice-but-not quite-right. I flip through the colorful racks with practiced precision, my eye towards the next great undiscovered beauty. And I’ve also come to notice an interesting phenomenon about the way I shop.

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Van Go Go Go

I have to say, life has been absolute madness lately. It seems as if there’s no time to stop and enjoy what’s around me, because I’m always running from one place to the next. And the problem with being constantly on the go, is that stopping somehow feels wrong. In academia (aka, the world in which I dwell), you constantly have your eye on the next paper, the next project, the next deadline to meet…and as such, I have done a whole lot of working and not nearly enough lounging…

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the JAWESOME sewing project

I always seem to have quite the adventure when I embark on a dressmaking project and this latest was no exception. This one in particular combined two of my favorite things: sewing and shark biology. Though the impetus is usually different, in general my dresses go from some sort of idea that’s been tickling at the back of my head for awhile until the perfect opportunity arises… Warning: Photo heavy post ahead!

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Wiggle It

We all have our style comfort zones. Although I like to experiment now and again, I tend to gravitate towards the things that work for me. My body type really suits the fit and flare silhouette – I have a proportionally tiny waist in comparison to my larger bust and then those blessed flared skirts cover all kinds of business (especially the squishy areas we all tend to be most insecure about). So most of the time I stick with that which is comfortable.

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The Curse of the Can’t

I was skipping across campus the other day, my head in the clouds, when a lovely woman stopped me to admire this 1950’s border print dress. She told me how much she loved the 1950’s style and would kill to wear a dress like that. When I asked if she knew of or would like advice on some great vintage shops in the city, she immediately said, “Oh no,” shaking her head with a self-depricating shrug, “I can’t pull that off.”

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The Lust List #1

We all have ways to unwind. One of the biggest for me is lazily perusing all of the beautiful things I’d like to just appear in my closet. The things I would love to jump onto my walls. I am certainly not secretive about my love for things from bygone days, so it won’t surprise you that my most favorite place to get lost is always on Etsy. To flip through the clickable racks and imagine what life would look like perched upon the perfect midcentury sofa. To drool over gauzy chiffon and wonder if my evenings would take on a sepia tone…

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