Hungry for the Job

So, I graduated University and got a new sweater. These two life events do not necessarily have anything to do with each other, but when I saw this Johnny Rotten Miu Miu knitted wonder on Jayne's SHOP IT RIGHT NOW blog, I knew it had to be mine. Ever since Rodarte's F/W 2008 collection, I've been in love with loose, spiderweb knit garments - so much that I've even knit two of my own! One blue and one pink. Johnny Rotten is a fashion icon, don't you forget it. I've also been wearing these brown schoolgirl low-top  Doc Martens almost every day because they're so ugly and utilitarian, which is really suiting my style right now.

In terms of finishing University, I had to write an undergraduate thesis and mine was called "The Nature of Alexander McQueen: The Aesthetics of Fashion Design as a Site of Environmental Change." If you would like to read it, you can download a copy of it on the University of Waterloo website, but I will warn you that it is 40 pages long so you might not want to. To combat over-academic-ness, I plan on self-publishing a zine this summer called "The Alexander McQueen Zine" which will included a condensed version of my thesis as well as more essays on feminism in McQueen's work.

Pit hair, don't care.

Animal House

On Sunday, I explored the Leslieville neighbourhood of Toronto with one of my favourite people (Julia!) and not only did we eat a delicious brunch, we explored the residential streets on the neighbourhood only to find this gem of a house, completely covered in stuffed animals and dolls. On first glance it appeared really whimsical, but after looking at it for a while, you start to notice how dirty and weather-beaten some of the poor stuffed animals really are, and it almost started to look Satanic. Anyways, I admire anyone weird enough to make their own house this extraordinary-looking, I can only imagine what its inhabitants look like!

Thrift Find #1034: Spice Girls T-Shirt

If only I had discovered this t-shirt around 1998, my world would have been complete. The Spice Girls were the first band I was ever totally obsessed with. I had Spice Girls postcards, stationary, lollipops and Barbie Dolls, so this t-shirt would have been the icing on the cake. It may be slightly embarrassing for my 22 year old self to be repping my 8 year old self, but life is way more fun when you’re a kid anyways.

What do you aspire to be?

This is not an aspirational blog. It is a tiny slice of my own reality. Instead of posing in front of yellow taxis on a busy street with tousled hair and stiletto heels, I take photos in front of the same wall of my house, doing the same poses, wearing the clothes I actually wore that day, because that is what I’m comfortable with. Instead of a photographer boyfriend with a fancy DSLR, I use the self-timer of a point-and-shoot digital camera, perched atop of a hand-me-down tripod.

Everything I’m wearing here is either hand-me-down or thrifted. The sweater is from an old roommate, and I cut up an old concert t-shirt (Of Montreal, they’re really good live) to sew on the back. The sunflower dress is thrifted and I bought the sneakers at Winners in high school and haven’t worn them since then. It’s scary that I’m now old enough to self-reference the styles of my youth.

We consume things because we want to be like them. It’s why we envy Jane Aldridge from Sea of Shoes for her seemingly endless designer footwear collection. It’s also why we purchase products that are targeted towards us without fail – because if we buy the product then perhaps we will transform into the model in the advertisement. It’s ridiculous how badly we want to escape our own lives to become someone else. If we can just stand our ground and tell our own stories with pride, we will be able to shake off this dusting of aspiration that has infiltrated the clothes we wear, the food we prepare and the pictures we post on Instagram. No one else is ever going to speak for you, so when you speak up, don’t do so using someone else’s voice.