April Showers may bring May flowers...

But I'm thinkin' rain rain go away. Now don't get me wrong, I love to dance and sing in the rain as much as the next person, but come on Chicago! If we're lucky we get a random day of warmth and sunshine in which we get to wear or spring dresses and sports wear. Not this year! It seems it will be summer before we see any jacket-less weather. I am not amused. The nice thing is that the big thing to do is wear rain boots - or Wellies if you prefer. I have an awesome pair myself (my little sis bought them for me a few Christmas' ago) that I've running around in. I remember when I got them my sisters were all over Ugg boots, and to say the least I'm not a big fan. I did gush about rain boots though. So my little sis got me a nice pair from J. Crew for Christmas. Too bad Michigan was more snow than rain...and I didn't know how to wear them. You see, mine are bright blue with hot  pink polka dots and trim. I was all for the traditional yellow, green or black, maybe with a pattern. But that's quite all right, for skinny jeans are in, crazy rain boots are a go, and I feel as though I've warn my boots at least twice a week for the past two months.

The other fun part about rain (sadly I don't get to enjoy this often because it's too much effort to juggle) is umbrellas! Not going to lie, I would love to have a wedding (if I ever get married - gotta find a guy first) that requires umbrellas. Think about it. All the bridal party wearing matching Wellies and holding plaid umbrellas for pictures would be AWESOME! Or maybe I'm just crazy. Either way some of my favorite umbrellas over the years have been the Ralph Lauren ones (my mom had those), ones that have something on the inside versus the out side, and this clear one covered in gold fish that can be found over at ModCloth.

So with these slightly happier thoughts about rain wear to combat the bad weather I offer you a small collage to leave you all with a smile, even if it's small and fleeting.

P.S. Yes I have weddings on the brain...my sis is getting married! What else would you expect?!

Storms, Sears and Senioritas...

And that was my Tuesday. For anyone in the mid-west area, you know it's been a little cold and a little damp. And by a little cold I mean that on most days I'm wearing a fleece and my winter coat; and by damp I mean snow on Monday and a thunderstorm last night. It's mid April!!! Almost Easter!!! I hope the little girls in pastel dresses have some awesome cardigans to keep them warm on Sunday... With the senioritas- I think most people understand that one. It's a month away from spring finals and next fall is my last semester. I wanna do jack squat. But I'm pushing myself, I swear! It's just hard to get out of bed on some of the days. Mmmmmm...warmth...sleeeeep...! Figure in a cold basement apartment and crappy weather outside and I'm pretty sure the situation is understandable. Yes I'm lazy, I admit it.
Now what's with the Sears? You see I needed to do a product evaluation of a shirt, t-shirt and blouse for each private label brand of a department store. Randomly I was given Sears, so off I went. I don't know about the rest of you but when I think Sears, I think power tools and appliances. That's good since it's one of their specialties (Craftsmen is one of their private label brands), but that's all I think of. I understand that it's a department  store, and therefore has practically everything, but when I think of clothes from Sears I automatically think "not that great". Woo boy! Was I ever wrong! Their stuff is just as good as everyone else's, only cheaper!! I might just have to start shopping there for all my nicer wear, especially Covington and Land's End. Land's End isn't as cheap, but it's good quality (my mom bought from them for years).
Yeah free publicity! Sears should pay me.

As for Easter... I was an ok Catholic. I gave up vending machines for Lent, and only once (I needed water for the train - I was beyond dried out) did I go against it. I didn't go to church. I deserve a good smiting. In my defense I was usually busy with work or homework, but still. Ah well, I shall try again next year, and the year after that... cause that's what you do in religion: try till you get it right. As for the fun parts of the holiday, I can honestly say I don't know what I'm wearing. Probably my navy sailor pants with a nice button down. If it's warm (doubtful) I might wear a dress. We shall see. However, if I had the body for it I think I might wear a hanbok. Say WHAT?!?! It's the traditional form of Korean dress (hanbok literally means Korean dress), and I've been doing some research on them for a  few of my classes and I might have fallen in love with women's hanboks, and with fusion designers like Lee Young Hee it's kind of hard not to.

Stunning, right?!?!

Funny thing though, the first time I ever saw a hanbok was actually at my cousin's wedding. The mother and grandmother of the bride wore them. I wasn't sure what to think of them then (I was in middle school), but now I wish I had been mindful enough to appreciate them.
But I think a dress like that would be stunning for Easter, especially the last one pictured. For the Christians out there, have a wonderful Easter, for all the others (I know the Jewish have recently celebrated the passover), I hope your spring holidays are happy and celebrated with loving family... even if it's just your basic weekend.

P.S. I got bangs...!

Pretty Pretty Princess

So I'm officially in one of those moods. You know, the "I don't wanna do anything" mood. I can't be sure if it's latent seasonal depression, stress or something else entirely (I personally am going to lay claims to stress... it was not a fab weekend on my end). So instead of doing work on my day off I sat on the internet and browsed pictures. Now I don't know about the rest of you but I've kind of fallen in love with WeHeartIt. Not only does it bring up some of the best pictures for a subject (as long as they've been tagged, that is), but it also tells you the website the picture was garnered from. The amount of hours I have now spent on tumblr is kind of redonculous. If I didn't already have this blog, I might have gone and gotten a tumblr account for myself.
But what has any of that to do with Pretty Pretty Princess? Besides me wishing I could play that delightful old school game (what grown up little girl doesn't from time to time), when I'm in a funk I like to go to my happy place. The easiest way to get there is via fairy tales. Grimm, Anderson, Disney... doesn't matter. However, in my search I did run into quite a bit of pink and poofy. And since these thing never cease to put a smile on my face, I wish to share them so as to hopefully put a smile on yours.

 Sleeping Beauty/ Aurora/ Brier Rose

 Belle/ Beauty

 Cinderella

Snow White

So there's a play on the classics. I'm personally diggin' the retro Disney princess dresses. As for the blue one in the Cinderella board, it was/is a real dress: Charles James “Petal” dress ca. 1951. Fun stuff, huh?!?!

And as a final note, what woman doesn't love an amazing pair of shoes... heck sometimes that's all I need to feel like a lady. Darn, now I wish I had worn heels. Ah well, listening to Disney music will have to suffice.

Why not?

A simple question, but not always an easy one to grasp and over come. You see, for one of my Fundamentals of Design projects we needed to design collections (3-4 pieces will be submitted) so we could learn the creative processes, the marketing process (who's your customer), how to choose fabrics, colors, etc. Now I decided I wanted to do something very wearable: wool pencil skirts, cable knit sweaters... very J. Crew/Ann Taylor/Ralph Lauren. But that was the problem... there was nothing new or spectacular about the pieces. I wanted them to be marketable; she wanted something "New". In fact she told me she just didn't like the designs. SAD PANDA!!! But by this time I've become attached to the designs, so revamping was a hard idea to wrap my mind around. There were a few pieces I wanted to keep, but how? So for a week I sat an stewed over new ideas, and decided on a Lolita concept. Showed my teacher some of the ideas, and she loved it. Great! But what do I do when I still have the other sketches on the brain?!?! So I went to Jerry (my Fashion Product Evaluation teacher, and the Owner/Head Designer of the XOXO brand) and freaked out on him, begging for advice. After explaining what I had done, and what I thought about doing I said "but I don't think I can do that" - in reference to the Lolita style - and he said "Why not?" I was so caught off guard. Of all the people I thought would look at me and say I was right to assume it was a bad idea, he did anything but. Instead he pulled out some older fashion forcast books and some historically themed paper dolls and said: "Here. Do research." To make a long story short I took a few books home (trains and large amounts of books don't compute ladies and gentlemen) and have since revamped everything, and it's 100 times better. Only stipulation: I show him the designs on Monday. I'm kind of excited.
Here are a few of the preliminary sketches...
These two were from the original batch, and the ones I loved most:

And these are some of my new ones:

No colors yet, but I'm getting there.

One of my major forms of inspiration for this venture was actually the Art Deco fashion designer Erte. Wait... Lolita and Art Deco?!?! What?!?! Believe it or not, what that man used to do with fastening, especially buttons, on his coats was AMAZING!

Here are some pics of the paper dolls I used:

Another inspiration was the designer Schiaparelli. What that woman did for suits...:

Bye, Bye y'all! Have a stylishly fantastic week!