GET ME DRESSED / WHITES FOR SPRING

i look way cooler in this photo than i will ever actually be in this lifetime

Hey-oh Spring! 

Lemme ask you a question. Do you believe in seasonal wardrobes? I do. I really do. I'd even go so far as to have a testimony of them. That's what this post is. Just so you know what you're jumping into.

a few new-to-me spring pieces for 2016

When I was 10 and starting the fifth grade, my mom took me back-to-school shopping at the local Mervyn's. (Oh, Mervyn's! Do we remember Mervyn's?) I will remember until I die those pieces we picked out that day under the hot Arizona sun, and the way a Mervyn's smells inside, and the squeaky sheen of patent leather shoes, because you always get a new pair of patent leather church shoes before school starts, there is no other way. 

We came home with a pair of forest green pants, a pair of burgundy pants, a forest green turtleneck, a burgundy turtleneck -- are we sensing a theme here? -- and then a patchwork vest in . . . yes, in forest green and burgundy red. Those five pieces represented to me the coolest girl wardrobe in the fifth grade ever, and I could not wait to start wearing them.

Of course, school starts up in August in Arizona and so I didn't really have a use for those clothes until well into November. Even if it had gotten freakishly cold in September, conscience would dictate that I could not wear my deep autumn colors until it was fully well and good the deep autumn. 

And so I waited. 

And pined. 

And yearned!

And then I wore the snot out of them from late October until late February, at which point those colors no longer felt right, and I had to switch over to my springtime rotation. Pinks, blues, you know. Easter egg colors.

Living with a personal code of wardrobe ethics is exhausting sometimes! And so limiting!

(Please tell me you are into taking this topic as equally jokingly deathly non-seriously as me, otherwise it'll spoil the fun.)

 

Well, I peaked at age 10, probably. It's okay. And since then, though my beliefs are the same, I no longer like those Easter egg colors for spring. (I am a Deep Winter, pastels look like consumption on me.) Instead, every March, I just want to wear white. Beige, cream, off-white, true-white, white-white. It feels refreshing and light and like just the right match for a sometimes-iffy spring sun. 

It's terribly impractical of me and of course that only adds to the fun. The other day I got out of the car with the crumbs of an entire Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie all over the seat my pants. But you know what, I won't let that hold me back. Life is a playground for the impractical! 

Here are a few favorite springtime looks to demonstrate the versatility and sheer shiny diamond-ness that shopping secondhand and wearing only white can provide.  In whites! 

Here it comes!

LOOK ONE / 

Also wearing: vintage Levi's and tan Bensimons. 

LOOK TWO /

A million years ago I hosted a braiding party at Lilla P in the Meatpacking District and there was this woman who stopped in that I will never forget. She was wearing super baggy khakis, leather oxfords, a gauzy white linen top, and not a stitch of make up, and I haven't been able to forget her. She carried a leather bag that was so soft it was legitimately like touching butter. Yeah, I asked if I could touch it, and it totally weirded her out. 

Anyway she was dressed like a Jedi except it all came off so amazingly chic. HOW!? In the back of my mind I've been on the lookout for a similar pair of khakis ever since, and while I haven't nailed the saggy baggy front-pleat pegged-leg rolled ankle of it just yet, these J. Brand khakis I found on thredUP are definitely doing the trick. A white Rag & Bone button up thermal from thredUp instead of linen, hi it's not that warm here yet. 

LOOK THREE /

Playing with proportions! As a short person I'm not used to going baggy top AND bottom, but trying new things are the spice of life! Aren't I brave? ;) 

Obviously each of these outfits is screaming to be smeared with chocolate, and the minute I get the last of my winter clothes in the basement it is SO going to snow. 

Bring it on. :)