I am convinced that wearing anything other than sweats to class falls somewhere on the scale of heroism. Or maybe I just felt like a hero because I basically was wearing a superhero cape/sweater/magic carpet/wing thing…
Here’s a new vlog where I try and fly and also dance and also be mildly fashion forward in class. Still working out the kinks of this method of diary, but will try anything that lets me shake my groove thing thrice.
Weeeee!
X!
C
You might have noticed that Dorky Chick in Lipstick has been undergoing some changes. This is assuming you used to read my blog with the old look and also that you have eyes. I know neither, but for those of you just joining me today “Hello, my name is Caroline and this is how my blog looks. Take a seat and spit out your gum.”
Oh wait, I’m not a salty bus driver? Moving on.
Let me tell you about the “rebrand”, or rather, #rebrand. It looks like this:
and
With a little consultation from some of my most cherished gal pals, (one of which is a graphic designer– hey girl thanks again!) I sorted through quite a few versions before I came up with something I thought had all the right junk in all the right places. I wanted lipstick colors without the red Target dart. I wanted something simple to build on that also had a signature detail. I wanted feel like I had a stamp of my voice.
Rebranding my blog was like playing dress up with my website… and we all know how I feel about dress up 🙂
It was more than a visual makeover that I was seeking. I needed to change my “about” section as well, because, frankly, I’m about much more than I led on in the beginning, or certainly than I knew I could be. So here is the short version which is followed by the long version. If the question was “why ‘Dorky Chick in Lipstick’?” this is how I would respond.
“Dorky Chick in Lipstick” is a safe place for fashion and laughter to coexist.
It is a living fashion journal that is stripped of anything that comes without personal progress. It celebrates the wannabe. It giggles through the clumsiness of being a twenty-something. It is my diary out loud.
If you are curious, read on. (long version)
“Dorky Chick in Lipstick” is more than a persona. It is an experiment.
It began in early 2013. I had restless fingers, a lot to say, and passion for fashion that I had neglected for more “responsible” things like paying bills and going to college. It was a solid track, but I was losing touch with my favorite art forms: writing and fashion. I needed an outlet. I started a blog.
As I looked at the fashion world to see where I might fit in, I was inspired, but I didn’t see a place for myself. I felt like I was in a lunchroom of fashion bloggers with no seat. I admired them all, but I didn’t quite see taking pictures of myself standing against brick walls in cute clothes or writing how-to’s on being a modern-day Martha Stewart as platforms where I could really speak my mind. I don’t run with a posse of fashion-obsessed women who I could recreate Sex and the City with, nor do I want to scavenge every stinky thrift shop in Portland for a writing prompt. Each blogger seemed so pulled together and clear with their voice and their style. I, on the other hand, was wearing yoga pants, and the only voice that I could hear in my head was making wise cracks and giggling.
I realized what I needed was a safe space: one where I could have both fashion and laughter.
I didn’t want to make $1500 style guides or be a slave to my instagram feed, and I couldn’t help but feel like there were others like me, who felt fashion existed only for those on “the other side”. Then I realized how silly that sounded; it is up to us to decide how we live in our clothes.
It is okay to wear lipstick and still be totally and impossibly dorky.
“Dorky Chick in Lipstick” is an experiment in demystifying what lies between fashion fabulosity and wherever we think we come from. It isn’t a fancy blog. I am not a photographer, graphic designer, website creator, a professional personality, or professional stylist, but I at least want to give it a try.
So come along. Yoga pants are welcome here. I’m telling the true, living story of a girl who wants to live expressively and laugh much. She loves to be a lady in lipstick, but her insides are giggling and making funny faces.
She is me, and I am welcoming you with flailing arms.
*end*
Cheers, friends! To progress, pink circles, and faking it until we make it.
XO,
C
I like playing pretend and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
A killer outfit changes my route from apartment to grocery story to a 4 block runway to flashing cameras. A new blog post changes my spastic thought machine of a brain into narrations of my life story as if I already know the ending. (The only thing I would need to complete it would be Morgan Freeman, but I just assume he knows all the endings.)
^^Look at that face! He totally knows.^^
These little natural highs I get from living in a fantasy world make me want to try new things….
….like pretending I’m a high profile fashion reporter.
So here’s me. Pretending to be on E! Which in my case should be D! or maybe just C! I hope you’ll watch and give it an A!
How’s that for a G-rated joke?
Anyhoo, so I did my hair and makeup and put on my trendy dress and whipped out a camera downtown at Portland Fashion Week! The audio was horrible and avoiding the eyes of people going “wtf is she doing” was sort of awkward, but totally worth it! I really like feeling like I can share thoughts and memories about my favorite things, and Portland and fashion are two of these! So come with!
Notes:
– the audio is haahhribble. I tried to talk really loud so you could hear me. It sounds a bit theatrical. Forgive me sweet readerwatchers.
– I wish I would have gotten a pic of Marybeth’s earrings. They were about 2 1/2 inches long and little copper colored chains. Minimalist chic, and hand made by a local boutique owner. (Between her local earrings, her local hat, and her muted but chic outfit she was screaming Portland. I loved it )
– Yes, taking dorky photos on the red carpet was pretty much a bucket list item.
Well kids, next vlog is back at my ritzy apartment, but before that I have some words about this new site look you are seeing… stay tuned. Thanks for watching and reading! Did you know you are helping me make my dreams come true? One baby blog at a time 🙂
X!
C
I did it. I made a vlog. That is trendspeak for “video blog”… kind of like “Brangelina” or “Bennifer” or “Cronut”
Because two words takes, like, time.
(^^bonus points if you can name that comedy sketch ^^)
I am going to share my vlog with you, but before I do that, please remember this: I am uncool. I know this, I’ve accepted this, and I ask that you prepare yourself to be underwhelmed. Even uncool people can play cool kid games, okay?! Okay, moving on.
So, yeah! I made my very first “dorky chick” vlog! I’m actually kind of excited about it because 1) it was fun! and 2) I have a lot of ideas for ways I can make better ones! I wanted to try out a new fun way to show off clothes I love, and I thought how about bringing “trenndayyy pics” to life! This is a vlog for anyone who has lost track of time before they need to be somewhere where they need to look like a civilized human. I’ll show you how I get from Bedhead Betty to a casual gal-pal lunch date!
FYI:
– Yes, I do shower. I did the night before.
– Some footage with better pics of the whole outfit were deleted. Rookie mistake.
– I arrived on time. BOO YAH.
– Next time I’ll kick it up a notch with the brand shout outs for those of you who are interested. 🙂
Lemme know what you think! Would you want to see more of these vlogs? Or maybe you think I should stick to pics? I’m just a tweet away. ( @pdxcaroline )
Cheers! To being uncool on camera,
X
Fummer? Sall? It is too chilly for shorty shorts and too warm for sweaters, but even with these imposing circumstances, I’ve decided to continue to wear clothes.
In fact, I wore some out the other night to my friend Katie’s birthday party.
AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS TIME FOR??! That’s right, kids. This is the part of the show where I put on clothes that I thought were cute enough to spend money on and do as the fashion bloggers do by taking trendy pics.
Except I do it my way.
Here’s what I wore: a B&W patterned blouse from Collective Concepts with my favorite loose-fitting polyester pants from J. Crew and heels from Isola. Right now my nails are a deep raspberry shellac, and for makeup I went with an lined pink lip and neutral smokey because birthday!
Here’s me being casual with my September Harper’s Bazaar.
And still trying to make this outfit look cool from afar.
But then I found an apple core. Uh…. oops.
And then decided I should just cut to the chase and contort my self so you could see the whole outfit.
Oh, and here is a peek at the nails + makeup:
If a burglar stole this exact outfit I would try to replicate the style with these items! From right to left: Everlane Silk Round Collar- $78, H&M loose teal pants- $24.95, Metika Wedge Sandal- $79 @ shopbop.com, and I’d hunt down nail polish like this one from OPI if I wanted to recreate without shellac.
TGIAF, y’all.
XO
Some breeds of dog are known to have their eyes literally pop out of their faces. Literally one minute they will have an eyeball inside their head, and then said eyeball will be on the floor. Typically it is the ones with the ones with smooshed noses, like pugs, who suffer from this dilemma of runaway eyeballs, but if I don’t put my September Harper’s Bazaar away for the night I might just learn what that feels like. I’ve been exhausting my eyes and noggin, stuffing my brain with images of assembled fabrics on airbrushed models, and I’m running out of room between my ears to hold it all. And of course that leads to Pinterest, which leads to self-hypnosis, which leads to the calendar telling you it is Thursday when last you checked it was Monday and now I can’t see anything and it might be almost the weekend again! *breath*
Uh… oops?
There is nothing like the September issue of a fashion magazine to reinvigorate my temporary enthusiasm for the idea of cold weather. The images of jackets and wool fabrics set to flashy graphics on shiny pages somehow erases all memories of cold associated with misery and instead replaces them with elaborate fantasies of crunching leaves under Manolo Blahniks and exchanging alluring glances with fancy men in Burberry trenchcoats. I don’t own Manolo Blahniks, and I don’t think many fancy men live in Portland. That being said, all this eye popping isn’t for nothing. I love the coming of Fall Fashion because it is like New Year’s all over again, except exclusive to style.
Sure, I’ve graduated from the whole back-to-school shopping, but I will never graduate from finding new ways to make the sidewalk my catwalk! So in honor of Fashion New Years, I am making a FNY resolution….. DRUMROLL PLEASE……
MY FNY resolution is to make 2015 the year of the upgrade.
^^move it kid, that’s mine!
Maybe I can’t swing Manolo Blahniks on a food service budget, but there are still some fab shoes I can crunch some leaves in, and I am going to wear them instead of those rubber things that were 6 bucks on my family beach vacation! I’m going to wear that shirt I love even though it needs ironing! Forget being cold this year– I’m going to actually have fun with layers! I’m going to put on some of that jewelry I thought I deserved to buy buy really didn’t! Yoga pants to the grocery store? NAY!
Okay that’s too far…but they at least better be recently laundered.
On a serious note, I’d like to try to find a couple garments that I have outworn and give them an update as well. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
In the mean time, if you were looking for an excuse to drink tequila and kiss a stranger at midnight, you have my blessing. How my blessing will hold up against the law when said stranger calls the cops is probably not very reliable. So, uh, be careful….
XO
p.s. If you have a FNY Resolution, tweet me @PDXcaroline or if you have an #upgrade, I’m on instagram @PDXcaroline … no pictures of eyes popping out of sockets, please…
“I don’t exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.” – Joan
In honor of Joan River’s passing, I would like to wear a feather boa to work. I don’t have a feather boa, so I feel I at least feel I owe a post to a woman who has been such an icon of shameless fabulosity.
Thank you, Joan, for the inspiration and the laughs. Rest in peace.
xo
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I had to do that just because I missed that sound. That tikka-tikka of the keyboard when I am starting a new Dorky Chick in Lipstick post. Maybe you read my blog before, and maybe you didn’t, but if you reading it now I just want to say thanks, hi, and welcome. I’ve missed this blog a little too much, and I think I’m done playing pretend.
I’m back.
Actually I have been in the exact same place the whole time but I had a really good hiding spot. Olly olly oxen free.
Maybe you remember my dramatic exit, maybe you don’t. But it went something like this: RIP fashion blog readers my blog is kaput. I don’t [always] love fashion, but I always love writing. I’m tired of pushing myself to churn out material about fashion when I’m overwhelmed with other facets of my young adult life. I am instead going to start another blog that is non-fashiony and be more transparent about my un-coolness.
I have deleted that blog post. I spent $26 dollars on this domain. And now I am confessing that I was wrong. And I apologize. I know things were going so well and all of a sudden I cut you off. It was selfish and I have learned my lesson. That other blog… it just wasn’t scratching my itch. Turns out, I actually do love fashion and all things fabulous. I’m not going to pretend that I am not a girly girl anymore because I definitely am. Not only that, but I love writing to capture the follies of the modern young woman!
It’s a clumsy reality out here, you know, and I got a little scared off. My internship ended, my financial priorities became my undergraduate degree instead of sewing classes, and I was seeing myself fall into routines that didn’t make time for writing. But the truth is, I broke the promise I made to myself when I started and that is to keep pushing through and to use this diary as a way of exercising my passion for a life lived fabulously! I shied away from what I thought was an ended path but I’ve learned that being real isn’t something to be ashamed of. It means detours, but it doesn’t mean the destination changes.
So I guess that makes this blog undead. Does that make it a zombie blog? Maybe. It is one of those nice zombies though……but not too nice.. More like a sassy and at times endearing zombie. Do those exist?
(^^seriously, who is the a-hole that put that online? That was what came up when I googled “nice zombie”)
No matter, what I was getting at before I got distracted thinking about zombies was that if you want to read my blog here is what you can expect:
– fashion posts, obviously. Some will be high brow, some will be low brow.
– blog posts about feminine things that I like. I am on a quest to find my true authentic style, and that is only going to happen if I try a lot of strange trends and various hairstyles first.
– blog posts about just being exactly who I am at exactly whatever given moment and being totally okay to laugh about it. Laughing is the most fabulous thing of all.
– blog posts bout PDX and the fab goings on! If something, like, amazing happens in the city, and I’m not there to blog about it, like, did it even happen?
(any Girls fans in the house?….. lol okay back to the list:)
– TRENDDAYYY photos. Yes. They are coming back. Can I get a whoop whoop?
– punny funs
– whatever I want b/c this is my blog with my rules!!!!! Maybe I’ll even vlog! I don’t know I’m crazy I do what I want!!!!
I think this song really says it for me…
TGIF blogosphere
and CHEERS! Because I missed you.
XO
I was just listening to some song on Songza that was like a meditation track and I had to quick change it because I almost fell asleep at the blog. I’m coming off of a whirlwind weekend of family fun with my pageant family in Seaside. There was an overabundance of everything wonderful, and now I am forcing my eyes to stay open because of the residual effects of so much merriment.
It’s been a minute. I’ve carried out my caffeine fueled days of answering front desk phone calls, taking drink orders, sitting in lectures, and tying loose life details. It hasn’t been a monumental month since last I blogged but it has been a momentous one.
What I’ve been learning:
Interning for Michelle continues to shed light on the big bad fashion world. You know, fashion designers are fairly normal business people. I hate to kill the mystique, but even when you get TV time, you still have to do grunt work like running errands to the fabric store, getting product shipped, and keeping your website fresh. I’ve continued doing my intern-y things and have been a sponge to the experience. I’m learning you have to keep going, keep expanding, and welcome opportunity. There is no doubt that she is a flipping incredible designer and deserves all the credit she gets, but even people who have “made it” still have to think for the future. It’s comforting to know things never get easier with success, they only offer a larger scope for future successes.
What I’ve been loving:
I’ve been feeding my fashion appetite with chunky sweaters and scarves and pairing with sleek boots and romantic accent colors like foggy amethysts, mossy green, moody black, and cozy camel. It is time to move into winter and any excuse to bundle up while staying stylish is a good one. I’m especially obsessed with the below-knee Mad Men-esque skirt length! Have a look into my brain via Polyvore collage!
What I’ve been making:
I may not be a crazy red headed lady forever, so I found this year to be an opportune time to live out my Disney dreams via Halloween costume. With a little help from a strapless undergarment for the top, I sewed a tail skirt and bandeau top of some excitingly sparkly fabric and spent the night of festivities as Ariel from the Little Mermaid!
(the tail is actually attached to my hand so I could look like I was swimming. A borrowed idea, but still effective!)
What I’ve been writing:
Wanting to take something drab to fab, I wrote an article with styling ideas for the classic college t-shirt. Click here if you care to take a peek!
Thanks for checking in! I’ll update again this week. I’m pouring more energy into my life than I have in too long and I’m glad I did. Time on this planet is too short , don’t you think?
xo
*bvv ts bvv ts bvv ts bvv ts*
That, friends is the sound of me having a small celebratory beatboxing session.
FashioNXT week followed through with everything I could have hoped for and then some. I made some new friends in the industry, got to see the work of fashion rockstars four nights in a row, and feel like I overall have a much better idea of what the fashion world in Portland has to offer and how I want to be a part of it! Some of you may know that a while back, I set a deadline for myself to engage the skills I’ve been boasting and I could prove myself by completing a design and wearing it at FashioNXT. I have been doing a lot of sewing over the past months, but mostly for class projects. That means pajama pants, tailored shirts, and sample stitches. All of these skills are important, but if I don’t start churning out more of my own looks I’ll be burning daylight!
In the words of Elvis,
“A little less conversation, a little more action please”
Look at that face..the man has a point.
So when I zipped up my creation and took off for the venue, it felt like an official stepping out. This was 100% mine and what I have been working hard to feel confident enough to do for years.
What I wasn’t expecting was that I was going to feel super nervous. I got in the car to drive to the event in my dress and thought, what if it looks homemade? What if a seam pops? What if I tell someone I made it and they get that glazed/raised eyebrow look on their face that says “yeah ya did….” while their voice says “oh that’s cool…”
Irrational fears, maybe, but I had put a lot of thought and love into making something that I knew epitomizes where I feel my style is right now and exercises my growth in my sewing skills. I splurged on the fabric months ago in NYC, I drew it and redrew it, and I did a lot of seam ripping right up to the hours before I left the house. So it is with grand excitement that I debut to you, loving readers, just another baby step in the “Dorky Chick in Lipstick” story.
OBVIOUSLY this calls for some “trennndayyyyy” pictures from my high class studio!
TA DAAA
Day 4 of heels… ay yi yi….
See through back….scandiiiii
I tried to recreate the pose from the drawing….. lol
At the event, my friend Erika, who I met working VIP, and I got to get our pics taken at the Intel Photobooth! It was a real mini runway you can walk down– we felt pretty cool.
For the record, nothing ripped, popped, or snagged. I just wore a dress and the world kept spinning. It isn’t a big deal, but someday in the future when I have made fourtyhundredthousandmillion dresses, I’ll know that this is one that helped me get there– and that is a great feeling.
The highlight, though, was after I took some designers from NYC to after party, they asked me if I was wearing one of Michael Costello’s pieces (a headlining designer for the week and Project Runway star). After hours of work, pin-pricked fingers, and a few F-bombs I got to respond
“No, actually, this is one of mine.”
xo
Dorky Chick in Lipstick 