Style Inspiration: Rugged.

I styled this look this morning and now want to emulate it - Translation coming...

A stroll through the woods... by hargrove 

AllSaints long shirt, $135

High waisted pants, £106

Modern Vintage lace up booties, 325 CAD

Banana Republic clutch handbag, $128

Astley Clarke gold stud earrings, $795

Anna Bee gold initial necklace, $86

Round sunglasses, $369

AllSaints slouchy beanie, $55

Beat It.

‎"Only hang around people that are positive and make you feel good. Anybody who doesn't make you feel good, kick them to the curb, and the earlier you start in your life the better. The minute anybody makes you feel weird and non included or not supported, you know, either beat it or tell them to beat it."
-Amy Poehler

Travellers.

Gypsies. Travellers. Pikeys. Whatever you want to call them. The most PC term is Travellers, hence the title of this post. We know I am always the most PC person (again, insert sarcastic font.)

Have you heard of this group? Travellers are a group of Irish people who decided to live a nomadic life and have developed their own traditions and language. Have you ever seen Snatch? Brad Pitt is a cast as Mickey, a traveller, in that movie.



This group is real. J and I experienced them at the Creamfields festival this year. It's true that you can't understand a thing they say and that they have their own customs and manners (or lack thereof). Most attendees of Creamfields camp in a nearby field (the festival takes place in the fields between Manchester and Liverpool). And as true of most English festivals, it poured and the entire festival became a mud pit. I was cut almost every time when waiting in the que for the restroom. Then, me being me, would try to say something and their responses were unintelligible.

They also have their own style. The girls are always wearing TONS of makeup, fake eyelashes, and light pink lipstick. In fact, they love everything pink. And they wear tutus. Even at 7am in the morning - they have it all on. I was the only woman who I saw not wearing makeup at any point during the three-day festival.

TLC has introduced American to this culture with the show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. The show focuses on the young brides in their culture. In fact, most women are pulled out of school before high-school and expected to take care of their family until they get married. They are usually married by age 20. And the weddings are ridiculous...

Example A:

Example B:

The second season of the show debuts tonight on TLC. You should watch it - check out this foreign culture. Let me know what you think...

Dresses.

Beautiful. I have been on such a dress kick lately. I have no idea when I became so girlie.

Haute Hippie knows how to do it. I ran into their storefront in NYC a few weeks ago and my acct was so lucky that it was closed. Everything was beautiful.

21 Questions.

I have my first blogger BFF!!! I am so stoked because we both feel like we were separated at birth. She had me as soon as she commented on my TP post with a story of how she unleashed a ginormous yeast blob on a friend's front porch - How could you not fall in love with that ingenuity?

Britt - you are my hero!

So she posted this survey yesterday and I thought I would copy her. Read on if you want to

1. If you could only eat savory or sweet things for the rest of your life, which would you choose- and why?
Savory - I do not really own one tooth that is sweet.

2. Would you rather live in the ocean (underwater), in the sky (on a cloud), or in space?
I am a So Cal kid - the ocean. Plus, I think I conned each of my grandmas into taking me to go see The Little Mermaid in the theaters when I was little - I still love that movie.

3. Desert, Mountains, Plains, or Tropics?
Tropics. I need to have water around me. J and I have been dreaming of a tropical vacay since we started dating (4 years ago)... And we get it in September! I sent him this picture last night and said how stoked I am to do this in Kauai :)

4. Would you rather live with chronic pain or the worst pain you can imagine for 24 hours?
I am a "rip the bandaid off kinda person" so I go with 24 hours of intense pain. I have never bred but I feel like that is what labor is.

5. If you had to repeat one of these again, which would it be? Preschool, Elementary, Jr High/ Middle School, High School, College.
College. If anyone answers Middle School to this question, they need to be institutionalized. NO ONE liked Middle School. That is as sure as the sun rising in the east.

6. Tribal, Floral, Stripes, or Polka Dots?
For my clothes - Stripes. For children - Polka Dots. For my house - All of the above. For my grandma - Floral.

7. Are you right handed or left handed?
Righty. But I always wanted to a lefty. Typical - I like to be the odd one.

8. Pick a guy: Edward Cullen, Peeta Mellark, or Harry Potter.
Peeta - Hands down. Edward abandons Bella. And I was never quite into magic/sci-fi stuff. And Peeta - well he can do no wrong (unless under the influence of trackerjackers and we all know that this Snow's fault).

9. If you HAD to have a crazy hairdo, what hairdo would you choose and why? (mohawk, mullet, etc.)
FRO! I once wore a fro wig to a bar. People thought it was real and I secretly wished it was.

10. If you could be a celebrity what would you like to be celebrated for? (dance, singing, acting, reality TV [i.e. no reason], political leader, etc.)
Designing clothes. No hesitation there. It is like a "get out of jail free" card to look and do whatever you want.

Example: Betsey Johnson

11. Be honest- do you brush and floss your teeth daily?
Nope. J does and so I was better when he was around. I need to do this - I know.

12. What is one fear you are working to overcome?
Something bad happening to someone I love and my being unable to help them. I am trying to learn that I cannot control everything.

13. White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, or Semi-Sweet (what is that)??
Milk. I HATE White. I am learning to love Dark. But who doesn't like Milk?

14. What is one trend you wish you could pull off?
Crop pants. Like the ones from J.Crew that look good on everyone but me. Ugh. I just don't understand it. Maybe it is my skinny ankles.

15. You're given the choice between a life with love and trials or loneliness and ease. Pick one.
Love and trials. Love is everything.

16. Would you rather live in Narnia, Hogwarts, Middle Earth, or Neverland?
Neverland! I want to be able to fly and be young forever! I hate wrinkles.

17. Think of your dream home... what style is it?
Craftsman. Just like this:

18. What's currently your favorite song or album?
I am still loving Nero's Welcome to Reality. It gets me moving and is just addicting.
Warning: It is DJ music. I love all types of music (except screamo - it gives me anxiety). I don't get how people are not obsessed with music. It is vital - like air.

19. Who was the last person you hugged?
In reality: my moot court coaches - we had a celebratory dinner last night. In my dreams: J. Always.

20. You have a ticket in your hand, where is it going to take you?
Wherever J is. That is home.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Home" from Edward Sharpe on Vimeo.

21. Who is one blogger you KNOW you'd be BFF's with in real life?
Britt of Secondhand Magpie. See above. She is funny, snarky, been through the grad-school angst, and is a just a real person. I am so stoked to have met her through IFB and I see great things happening for her.

I also love Paige from Barefoot & Vintage. A So Cal girl who is real? Oxymoron? Nope. Plus she has great style and an awesome outlook on life and family.

I see a theme here - Realness = I adore you.

Kids These Days.

I swear that kids these days are getting dumber by the minute. Maybe it is the heavy use of all things electronic to do almost everything that weakens the use of common sense. I don't know the cause, but I see acts of stupidity on their part every day. I was never so stupid! (insert sarcastic face here)

Just this Saturday I was driving down my quiet residential street at 8:10pm when I saw three cars parked in the street. Mind you all of my neighbors have large driveways and no one parks on the street. I quickly saw what was up when all of the car doors slammed and I saw HS boys skimpering about in white tshirts and reflective running shoes -- They were toilet-papering my neighbors house (or TPing as it was called in my day). I didn't call my neighbor because I don't know them. If I did, I would have called them. Not because these boys were wrong for stringing rolls of toilet paper all over my neighbor's property but because these boys were doing it all wrong and needed to learn a lesson.

Get it together boys!!!

If you are going to go TPing, do it right. Here are some tips for next time from a seasoned pro (I was never caught).
1. Wear black. Common sense? I think so.
2. Go later at night. It was just daylight saving time so it stays lighter later over here. The sun just went down and it is barely dark.
3. Avoid reflective clothing. See #1.
4. Take cover. Do not stand in the middle of the street when a car comes. Hide you idiot!
5. Take a limited number of cars to avoid neighborhood watch. Many cars looks suspicious.
6. Weekdays are better than weekends. Did you really not think that people would be out and about, driving past you on a Saturday night?

Youth of America - I expect more next time.

Current Zara Loves.

Just a few things currently sitting in my shopping bag on zara.com...








clockwise from top left:
- Snake Print Waistcoat with Fringing, $59.90.
- Basic Sandal, $35.90.
- City Bag, $49.90.
- Dress with Cutout Design, $49.90.

Graduation.

I try not to post negative things. However, this article is the most accurate reflection of many of our realities. Please read before you ask me how excited I am to graduate law school.

Law School Ruins Lives
By Annie Aboulian
__________________________________
I'm no census taker, but California's lawyer to normal human being ratio has to have reached something like 32:1 at this point. I don't know how we all got here, but I'm embarrassed to recall the snooty air with which I told my parents one day, "You can't do anything with an English major but teach. And I, for one, am worth FAR more than what they're getting paid these days!" Next thing you know, I found myself carrying my weight in text books at a top 20 law school and hating every second of my life. All that kept me going were the persuasive words of a 3L on Preview Day: "Law school will be hard, but we're both going to be very rich after we graduate."
Apparently, I'm not the only sucker who got roped into the most expensive mistake of my life that way. Fourteen law schools nationwide have already been sued in two class action suits (Gomez-Jimenez v. New York Law School and Macdonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School) for fraudulent employment statistics, and the attorneys representing the outraged grads in this class action plan to sue ten more by Memorial Day. The main allegation against all these schools is that they "committed fraud by inflating or misrepresenting their postgraduate employment data to lure students." Dave Anziska, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, adds that these employment rates "just don't comport with the reality of the legal job market. We hope that litigation...changes the way legal education is marketed and provides compensation to those who may have been misled in the past."

Misled is right! Quickly scanning the list of named defendants, I see at least three schools I've never even heard of boasting a post-graduate employment rate of 98-100% of students. If lawyers who graduated from some of the most prestigious universities in the nation are suffering from this obscene market saturation, how can some of these smaller players promise students these odds with a straight face? Some of these schools even reported grossly exaggerated average salaries that were actually based on just "a small sample of high earning graduates." So even if in the best case scenario, 90% of a law school's graduates ended up being employed, a big chunk of this number included jobs that didn't even require a law degree, or that perhaps paid a little above minimum wage. The sour cherry on top of it all is the utter lack of compassion by the President of the American Bar Association, Bill Robinson. In an interview with Reuters, Robinson played dumb and callously remarked, "It's inconceivable to me that someone with a college education...would not know before deciding to go to law school that the economy has declined over the last several years." While it's true that nobody forces anybody to go to law school, it's not inconceivable to me that an ambitious college grad would trust that an institution dedicated to the teachings
There Is A Huge Problem With Law Schools Promising Six Figures Within Nine Months Of Graduation.
of law and justice wouldn't lie about his entire future just to turn a profit.

Not only are law school grads pushed into nonexistent legal jobs because that's the only way they stand a chance of paying off all that crippling debt, but we're simultaneously blacklisted from any alternative careers we may have preferred. I love to write, so I pursued the degree I was told would get me the most gainful employment doing what I love. But the sad truth is that I was more marketable before I went to law school. Now, I'm a needle in the dime-a-dozen haystack of California lawyers who is suspiciously overqualified for entry level jobs in other fields, who has more degrees than many of the people who run the non-profits I'd prefer to work for, and labeled a flight risk who will up and leave once a legal job opens up elsewhere. In fact, a friend of mine started to leave law school out of her resume, which actually got her an interview for the first time in months! But as soon as the cat was out of the bag about the all too suspicious three-year long gap in her resume, her interviewer let her know "absolutely no J.D.'s need apply to this position, thank you very much!"

So the conclusion is not the simple one people like Bill Robinson would like it to be--that there are just too many lawyers and not enough firms hiring in this economy. Because this scam reaches much further than that. Yes, there is a huge problem with admissions directors promising six figures within nine months of graduation. There is also a problem with them insisting that "there are a million things you can do with a law degree." Because there aren't. There are a few. You can practice law. If you have the money by some other means, you can start a business. Or if you're lucky, you can work from home as a freelance writer and blogger living paycheck to paycheck, volunteer at a non-profit organization teaching kids to expand their writing skills, and wait for the day "law school" is no longer a scarlet letter on your resume. Maybe if I were a plaintiff in this law school litigation crusade, I could get my money back and start over: pretend I'm bright eyed, about four years younger, and can still afford an unpaid internship. Or better yet, I could get that teaching degree I always thought I was too good for.

Jail House Rock.

If you never watch another video again, you have to watch this one! OMG! So adorable... The ending is the best!

Silence.

I understand that some people adore Lady Gaga. At first, I thought she was interesting and I will admit, the girl can sing. However, now I see that her antics are weird for weirdness sake. I think it is all an act, a marketing ploy and I am just not falling for it.

That being said, I do appreciate her charity efforts with Japan and bullying. I am never going to knock her for that.

But just this week Gaga sat down for an interview with Miss O herself.

In her interview Gaga revealed that she will breed until she has a soccer team, and that she is going to take a vow of silence. (Somehow these two revelations seem to be contradictory to me.)

I immediately thought of this commercial when I heard that Gaga proclaimed to the world via a television interview with Miss O herself that she would be taking a vow of silence.


Anyone with me on this?

Unique.

Have you ever seen anything like this skirt? Me neither. I want.

Best. Jeans. Ever.

Source: gap.com via Lauren on Pinterest

These are The. Best. Jeans. Ever.

I consider myself a jeans pro. I have over 50 pairs. I worked at Gap and was the "Denim Specialist." I know the cuts, the shrink, the materials. I even have a coffee table book on "The Blue Jean." With that being said, these jeans are amazing. Not too skinny/tight; comfy as pajamas; don't really stretch that much; perfect length for heels and hold a "cuff up" to wear flats. What more could you ask for?

I have one pair and am considering ordering more. Is that obsessive or just safe? Do you buy more than one of something if you adore it?

Always Knew.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I always knew the woman I wanted to be.”
- Diane von Furstenburg

The Eight Kindes of Drunkennes.

Back in 1592, Elizabethan satirist Thomas Nashe produced and distributed a popular pamphlet named "Pierce Pennilesse," within which was written the following — a list describing the "Eight Kindes of Drunkennes."

It seems that very little has changed. I know many of these "Drunkennes."


THE EIGHT KINDES OF DRUNKENNES

- The first is ape drunke; and he leapes, and singes, and hollowes, and danceth for the heavens;

- The second is lion drunke; and he flings the pots about the house, calls his hostesse whore, breakes the glasse windowes with his dagger, and is apt to quarrell with anie man that speaks to him;

- The third is swine drunke; heavie, lumpish, and sleepie, and cries for a little more drinke, and a fewe more cloathes;

- The fourth is sheepe drunke; wise in his conceipt, when he cannot bring foorth a right word;

- The fifth is mawdlen drunke; when a fellowe will weepe for kindnes in the midst of ale, and kisse you, saying, "By God, captaine, I love thee. Goe thy wayes; thou dost not thinke so often of me as I doo thee; I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee as well as I doo;" and then he puts his finger in his eye, and cryes;

- The sixth is Martin drunke; when a man is drunke, and drinkes himselfe sober ere he stirre;

- The seventh is goate drunke; when, in his drunkennes, he hath no minde but on lecherie;

- The eighth is fox drunke; when he is craftie drunke, as manie of the Dutchmen bee, that will never bargaine but when they are drunke.

(source via Lists of Note)

Divine.

Source: elementsofstyleblog.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Divine. Her and this dress, both. I wish I had an ounce of her style at that age. I am sure that having amazing designers on your speed-dial helps... Just sayin'. Either way, she is just amazing.

Every. Single. Thing.

Source: designsponge.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Every time I look at this picture I see something new and I fall in love all over again. The walls originally caught my eye - Have you ever seen walls like that?!?! Is it petrified wood? Marble? I don't care - just give it to me.

Then I saw the rug. Then the chandelier. Then the peonies (one of my ultimate faves). Then the black walls of the far room. Then gold/wood candlesticks. Then the chairs. Then the bubble lamp in the far room.... It just does not stop. I want every single thing in this room!