Tag Archives: Portland Oregon

delusions, resolutions, and now i want ice cream.

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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.

 

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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.

 

 

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^^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…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pics of my TRENNNDAY outfit- feat. the dress I made!!

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*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”

Elvis-Presley-007

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 DAAAPhoto on 10-12-13 at 4.51 PM #3

 

 

Day 4 of heels… ay yi yi….Photo on 10-12-13 at 4.51 PM #5

 

See through back….scandiiiiiPhoto on 10-12-13 at 4.50 PM

I tried to recreate the pose from the drawing….. lol

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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.

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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