Pop of Pink

Sweater - Rag & Bone

Jeans - thrifted

Necklace - vintage { 1950s }

Socks - American Apparel

Bag - Proenza Schouler PS1

Shoes - Miu Miu

Day Off

Cardigan - Prada

T-Shirt - American Apparel

Jeans - thrifted

Necklaces - vintage and Gap

Bag - Balenciaga

Belt - vintage { 1980s }

Shoes - Robert Clergerie for Barneys

Printed Matter Humblebrag

Like most newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle puts out their Style section on Sundays.

If you picked up a copy today, you may have seen a couple of my stories on the back page.

I've started writing for them on a semi-regular basis. Small stuff, for their Window Shopper feature. If you missed picking up a paper, links to the stories will be available online beginning on Monday are here and here. 

It's funny, one of my earliest San Francisco memories was reading this paper in the morning with my grandparents at their breakfast table. When we'd come visit as small children, Grandma would go out of her way to buy kid-friendly cereal (like Teddy Grahams and Barbie cereal) and I'd sit there shoveling the sugary gold into my mouth and reading the Chronicle with them in the breakfast room. I never, ever thought I'd be writing for that paper some day. This is living the dream right here, people, even if Barbie cereal no longer exists.

The Greatest Love of All

I can think of at least three separate occasions over the course of my life where I'm walking down the sidewalk with someone I'm secretly pining for and we stumble across a scattering of abandoned playing cards. Is this a common occurrence among the general population? Like, you're going past a bar (it's always a bar!) and on the ground there's this abandoned deck of cards speckling the pavement, like the left-over bones of a carcass out in the desert that remain long after the wild animals have ripped it apart.

For most people, this is a unique enough occurrence that it warrants a verbal acknowledgement. "Huh," someone says, "Look at that." Your mind races. How did this happen? It might be a crime scene. And you and your secret crush's necks twist around as your pace slows, taking in the different numbers and suits, some facing up, some face down, while The Card Cheat starts playing in your head, or some scene from a movie about riverboat gamblers.

My question is this: when in this situation, walking along with the object of your (secret) affection, do you silently pray to come upon the two of hearts? Like, both your eyes fixate on that particular card, then you both look up at each other? Because of course the inevitable next thing would be for your crush to realize that, wow, I love you too! and it's the most pure and beautiful thing ever, and you didn't even have to put yourself out there because the card did all the talking for you.

When I was in college I worked in the English department's administrative office. One day, with the radio broken and everyone else on vacation, I decided to start reading a stack of essays that one of the professors had graded earlier in the week. I read exactly one, by a male student whose name I did not recognize. He talked about how his ultimate dream was to some day live in a small town in Maine not unlike the fictional town of Cabot Cove, because to him the epitome of bliss was riding his bicycle through town and waving at people. He enjoyed being close to the coast because it allowed him to walk along the beach and look for rocks. For some reason, he sheepishly said, he always hoped to find heart-shaped rocks.  Uh, DREAMBOAT ALERT!

It was probably a fortunate thing that Facebook didn't exist back then and people's names were only Google-able if you were exceedingly world famous, because I would have internet-stalked the shit out of this guy, had a friend drop a deck of cards outside his dorm's front door, then accidentally-on-purpose bump into him on my way to class.  There's no question that my two of hearts card scenario would have worked perfectly with him; it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. Insta-boyfriend. But I suppose it's fitting that in all the times I've walked by orphaned playing cards on the sidewalk, whether alone or with someone, I have never once seen that elusive two of hearts. In fact, just the other day I stumbled upon a spray of cards outside Orbit Room (see! another bar!) and that solitary ace you see above was the closest I could get. Yet I strode on down the sidewalk. Maybe that's the lesson here, to play your hands the best way you know how, and not wait for twists of fate to make the decisions for you.

Old Timers

Dress - vintage { late 1980s, borrowed from Dronning Vintage's backstock }

Cardigan - thrifted, unknown

Bracelets - H&M and vintage

Necklace - Kenneth Jay Lane

Earrings - vintage { 1950s } from an estate sale

Shoes - Jimmy Choo

Nail color - Essie's 'Candy Apple'

Put the Needle on the Rekkid

Blouse - H&M

Skirt - Banana Republic

Necklace - vintage { 1980s }

Shoes - Miu Miu

Bag - vintage { 1980s }

Bracelet - vintage { 1950s }, gift from Ted

Peachy Mint

Blouse - Madewell

Sunglasses - Chanel

Skirt - Zara

Necklaces - vintage and J. Crew

Shoes - Prada

Tropicalia

Blouse - vintage { 1980s }

Trousers - Zara

Bag - vintage { 1980s }

Bracelets - vintage and J Crew

Necklace - Ioselliani

Shoes - Prada

Space Odyssey

This image of gigantic clouds of dust and exploding stars was captured by the Hubble telescope, and was also the photo on the cover of my astronomy textbook in college.

I had a difficult time in that introductory astronomy class (I only took it for my school's required science credit) for many reasons, not least of which was that I was completely transfixed with the cover of my textbook! This photo was (and still is) one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. Imagine being eighteen, knowing jack squat about a whole lot of nothing, and then suddenly being faced with images like these (and all the facts within the book that emphasized the vastness of the universe and thereby your own complete nothingness) that knocked you off your dorm room bunk bed every night. These pillars of light, dust and gas were particularly strong on the melt-my-brain spectrum in that they reminded me of the undersea kingdom in The Little Mermaid. Yet here it was! On the cover of my book! My mind was sufficiently blown on a nightly basis by the mighty splendor of the contents of my textbook and, by default, the existential creatureliness of human beings. I once read a passage from the book aloud to my roommate at one in the morning as she was trying to fall asleep, it moved me so. Strangely enough, she opted not to room with me again sophomore year.

But enough about me. Let's talk about Rachel and her amazing line, Pillars of Creation. Rachel has prints of different telescope images, like nebula, galaxies, and stars digitally transferred onto silk scarves and other products. I'm particularly taken with the big square scarves. One of them would go very well with this whole black for spring theme I fall into every now and then.

I also love this little throw pillow. My bedding situation is so drab; I'd love to start from scratch and build a whole new concept around this pillow.

You can buy directly from Rachel here. She also has a blog where she talks about fashion and other style projects she works on.

Cat People

Sweater - vintage { 1960s }

Blouse - Miu Miu

Brooch - vintage { 1960s }

Skirt - Gap (old)

Earrings - my godmother

Bag - vintage { 1950s } from Relic Vintage

Socks - American Apparel

Shoes - Cole Haan