Tbh ‘jeans + t-shirt’ is how I dress approx 75% of the time when I’m not at work or in PJs and I’m OK with that.* I just wish that when I did want to dress up there were more options.

*My mother never fails to remark that it’s time I get some adult sneakers every time she happens to see me in Converse. What adult sneakers are exactly, I have no idea.

e that is me exactly, down to the converse (which I wear to work all the time :-/ )

I would feel pretty great about a Dr. in converse tbh but that’s just me.

I actually do have a lot of dressier/nicer stuff but it’s so much to think about. This morning I was going to wear this new skirt I have but haven’t worn yet but then I started getting overwhelmed thinking of which tights and boughts to wear it with etc. and I didn’t have time so I just wore my work equivalent of jeans/t which is black trousers and a sweater. Laying out my clothes the night before helps this dilemma a bit but I fell asleep on the couch last night.

tights and boughts

lol

tight and BOOTS not boughts

omg so did i (fall asleep on the couch...i don’t have to be @ the BEC until 3pm today so w/e i am just chilling)

lol :)

e, I didn’t quite get what “vocal fry” was (I think maybe it’s less common in the UK, but I have def heard it, and tbh I basically never hang around young people so whatdoIknow etc) until I followed the link from a comment elsewhere on the internet and listened to the stream on this page:

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/active-voice.aspx

Check the last word of nearly every sentence, where her voices goes low and sort of growly/tremelo.

I am a terrible person for wearing black jeans and sneakers (nearly the only shoes that reliably fit my wide, flat feet) to work every day. My token gesture to adulthood was when I decided I was too fat for t-shirts and started wearing buttoned blouses, but those are not cool and have been hard to buy for the past few years so now I wear tops which are basically... slightly nicer t-shirts, I guess.

i am a big fan of the slightly nicer t-shirt

also the only shoes i have worn for the past 2 months, save once or twice wearing my cowboy boots, are my blundstones, so... but i still feel like an adult. and my feet are v happy.

that voice lowering thing is bizarro imo

Oh wow I can’t listen to that girl—her voice is really annoying! I don’t think I do that. If I do anything I worry it’s that I go up at the end of sentences and sound a little Valley Girl-ish. Hmmmmm. Maybe I can get the other examples to work on this computer . . .

Yes, that’s very strange. I’m going to listen out for this and see if I hear it irl now.

After working hospo/retail for so many years, and having to dress accordingly, I love that now 4/5 work days I get to wear baggy jeans, trail runners and my husband’s old t-shirts. It makes wearing ” proper” clothes less of a chore and way more fun.

you will! oh you’ll hear it. talk to college students.

homo II i applaud you for your bold fashion. i hope you didn’t think i was being critical of that whatsoever in my reluctance to accept “cougar”. i guess i just prefer “vixen”.

i think my default style is generally undercover witch/secret surprise occult priestess in a suit of rather normal armor.

i wish i could be a hammer woman, but i have neither the hair nor the bod

what’s a hammer woman?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/poletti/sets/72157604767547323/

(may contain nsfw photos but the ones in the beginning are ok)

women of hammer horror

WMIG (would murder in gorefest)

i am a big fan of the slightly nicer t-shirt

me too but I must admit I still feel a little excitement at this time of year when I can get away with a plain ol’ t-shirt (possibly advertising a band or something similarly symbolic of non-office vibe) knowing that it’ll be hidden by a sweater all day

hahaha <3

What adult sneakers are exactly, I have no idea.

They aren’t. Instead there are these things called “shoes.”

I know, I know but I have big feet that are hard to find nice shoes for. Also, I wear shoes out really really quickly. I generally have one pair of black ballet flats, sneakers and a couple pairs of boots. I can’t wear high heels for more than an hour at a time so they’re pretty much out. :(

evan I seriously wanna shop for you.

can I make a polyvore for you??

x-post—Besides, sneakers just go better with a t shirt and jeans. ;)

There are so many wonderful oxfords out right now! And many kinds of loafers, too. Or Clark’s, even if you had to buy men’s sizes (not sure).

Oh I’m not quite in in men’s size territory. I will have a look next time I’m in the market which is about now since my black flats are about falling apart.

Also if I’m totally honest—I pretty much hate shopping because I’m so unhappy with my body. If I felt more comfortable with myself I’d probably be more into buying more clothes and dressing up but I don’t and so it’s a lot easier to just wear “safe clothes” rather than go trying on new things and winding up in tears in a dressing room somewhere. It’s a problem which I plan on addressing. In therapy! Tomorrow! :)

Check out these Bass oxfords!

that is so true — i’ve waited years for oxfords to come back and here they are. i’ve had a pair of black oxfords as long as i can remember, probably since i was 12?

god those red ones are so cute

It’s a problem which I plan on addressing. In therapy! Tomorrow! :)

yay! squash that shit, you’re going to feel better soon.

Those are really nice actually.

Oh man a couple years ago I went to the Bass outlets and they were having a buy 2 get one free sale on already reduced boots. I got three pairs of boots for < $100. It was amazing. Wearing a pair of them today as a matter of fact.

(different pairs since i was 12, obvs, but i remember virtually all of them because i wore them ALL THE TIME)

Tbh my entire style approach is to go too young with the hair and make-up and too old with the attire, so I embrace the matronly work wardrobe w open, polyester-clad arms.

Those are Frye’s, though, so price is slightly eeek.

oh boy those are the ones i have wanted FOREVERRRRR

they’re perfect

In my Catholic HS we were only allowed to wear oxfords so I usually had a bunch. Or these—these were very popular too:

<3 Frye’s but they’re so $$$$. I know they last forever but I never have that much to spend on shoes at any given time.

omg I have no idea what I’d wear these with and therefore prob never would but I NEED THESE:

Loaf loaf loaf

(Nine West)

Oh hai look, also in blue!!!

Ooooh, lech found the Rachel Antonoff collection!

btw my hahaha <3 was for emily

WMIG (would murder in gorefest)

― Illia Rump (emil.y), Tuesday, December 13, 2011 12:33 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

I’m in desperate need of new boots—I want a sort of oxford style boot, mid calf, but haven’t found anything under 200

laceup you mean?

with or without heel

Gorgeous shoes...*HEART* Frye’s shoes and boots. They occupy the place in my heart once owned solely by Fluevog. Never owned a pair of those either. Triste. My life has always been very Nine West, Converse sneakers and whatever Born I can find on sale at Ross. Except for the year I saved for mediocre leather boots from Sundance. Okay, now I’m feeling sorry for myself, teehee....

smoove: What about (putting in full urls for info and for simplicity’s sake):

http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/steve-madden-troopa-boot/3132609?origin=category&resultback=288

http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/ilenia-p-8020-lace-up-bootie/3191972?origin=category&resultback=5008

http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/steve-madden-graanie-boot/3179962?origin=category&resultback=4320

http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/asia-goracci-mid-shaft-boot/3191924?origin=category&resultback=4608

...and etc?

i am getting the rachel antonhoff heeled saddle shoes for x-mas... can’t wait.

I was going to say earlier that I really want saddle shoes.

lucky! those seem like shoes i would want want want want and then wear like 2x because i have a glut of special occasion shoes and severe lack of occasions on which to wear them :(

maybe i just need a more exciting social calendar?

I was just looking at that collection thinking that I’d buy myself some with expected birthday money but I am worried I’ll never wear them if I do. :/ I’ll have to think about it.

I want a pair of shiny paratrooper jump boots for hiking to the subway in this winter.

i was talking about the heeled ones. the flat ones would go with lots of stuff and aren’t as SHAZAM POW.

?????

I have a lot of kinda 50’s-ish dresses that would look really great with the heeled saddle shoes... that was my intent, anyway.

I am picking out Evan’s clothes! THIS IS HARD

I LOVE THE HEELED ONES, TOO! I was going to make a whole post about how if the price of the heeled saddle shoes was my soul, I’d sign on the dotted line. Did you see the cordovan & cognac combo??

i’d wear those black boots, but i am never without a pair of laceup black boots

Those black lace up ones look like the steel toe Docs I wore in HS/College. My shitkickers as my dad would call them.

lol I am lame

HERE ARE SOME OUTFITS FOR YOU EVAN IT IS ALL FROM ASOS.COM, A VERY NICE RETAILER

http://www.polyvore.com/evans_wardrobe/set?id=40733243

Mandee have you ordered from Asos? How does the sizing convert?

I mean—has stuff from there fit true to size?

It runs about half a size big.

I’ve had magnificent luck, but I have pretty standard measurements for my size... and I am 5’8“ so pants are always the perfect length on me.

My sister has quite different proportions than me and things don’t fit her as well.

I’ve only had one thing not fit in the like fifty things I’ve ordered

I like that they tell you what size the model is wearing—that gives some idea, often.

I’ve ordered quite a lot from there and the only things that didn’t fit were just weird fits anyway (like a really rigid ‘shell’ top).

i have those frye oxfords and they are great! i got them from urban outfitters when they were having a 50% coupon thing and so they were more reasonable.

I forgot about this, but sometime ilxor Lauren has the high-heeled saddle shoes (“HHSS”) and says they’re turrible hard to match to wear b/c the high contrast of the white makes them look funny with a lot of pants.

omg ty homo

I probably would mainly wear them with dresses

i just rewatched pulp fiction and i have to say, either uma’s black-pants-white-shirt outfit is timeless or i’ve totally fallen for this ’90s resurgence. pos both.

It’s totally timeless.

yaay! i am on the lookout for those pants

more for spring/summer tho. for right now i just need another pair of skinny jeans—uniqlo changed something in their design and now they fit oddly on me! all their pants do! even the jeggings! blargh. oh well, it just means i actually have to go shopping properly.

thanks, laurel (many xps)!

i really like the first steve madden ones, but i want a min. 2“ heel

i like the second ones ok but i hate the black sole with that color on the leather, plus i prefer a round toe. also might be a bit short in the shaft (lol)

i was trying to post those graanie steve maddens when the sandbox went down—i really like them, think i might get them since they’re on zappos and i can try a couple of sizes

don’t like the last ones at all—too chunky/butch

but yeah—you totally got what i meant by ”oxford style“... i was using that term (pretty inaccurately) as a shortcut for vintagey/toe seam/lace up/detail.

but i really really really can’t/shouldn’t spend money on new boots right now, bc i have 3 perfectly wearable pairs, and i have an idea that my husband has spent about 3x more than he was supposed to on b’day presents for me.

Feeling really frustrated with what ~feels like~ that whole “Why should we talk about it? Our privilege is that we never *have* to talk about or question this stuff!” wall right now.

Really feel like I’m constantly walking through a minefield of worrying about not ~offending~ dudes and I never know what’s on the menu and what’s not on the menu, and the rules are so arbitrary, and it’s never actually one’s “tone” but just the fact that one mentions it, at all. “Now just go off and have your little conversations about sexuality and sexual imagery somewhere they don’t interrupt the stream of pictures of girls in their underwear.”

I know it’s probably not that, but it really *feels* like that, right now.

Anyway, as you were. Back to your dresses and shoes and whatever.

Kate! I specifically just said that it wasn’t that and that I do think those conversations are important and should be had somewhere. You haven’t posted to WS before, right? This honestly doesn’t have anything to do with you or the discussion you tried to initiate—it’s a standing thing. I’ve gotten in trouble for “talking” to much on that thread before as have many others. It’s sort of part of the joke. So even though it *feels* like that right now I promise you it’s not that and has nothing to do with you personally or your questions (which are really important ones!).

I was trying to be helpful by saying something now before someone said something harsh and easily misinterpreted.

I posted that *before* your clarification, TBH.

“Now just go off and have your little conversations about sexuality and sexual imagery somewhere they don’t interrupt the stream of pictures of girls in their underwear.”

This is the essence of that thread 24/7/365, Foth. The reason I avoid it pretty strictly.

Also the prevalence of what is essentially the same skinny brunette over and over and over and over.

What thread?

The “would smash” one, not that I recommend looking at it in too much detail.

I was quite enjoying the blithe positivity and pseudo-obliviousness of this new-era Fotherington Thomas, by the way.

never looking at WS is a good strategy for life imo

ws thread, thejenny xp

fwiw I would be very interested to read yr thoughts/opinions on this stuff FT/Pyth! I had a chat with a lady friend the other day wherein I mentioned my then-very-worrisome male anorexic pt, and made some comment about how the mortality rate for men with eating disorders might be higher because a) they don’t have a biological imperative to maintain adipose and b) emaciated men are more likely to register as “scrawny” at a stage in the disease where a woman would be more likely to register as “dangerously thin,” even accounting for messed up values wrt women’s bodies etc

then my friend told me about that andrej dude I’m just now seeing for the first time and was like “they’re even using men now as models precisely because ladies’ bodies arent designed to get thin enough” *spits on the ground*

I should prob stop butting into the girls thread sorry

Yes, most of the women posted are skinny and conventionally attractive but they’re mostly actresses and models who are obviously more likely to fall into those categories. Is that a problem? Of course it is and I’m not for a minute suggesting that it isn’t but it isn’t a thread about people we see on the street who are normal looking and amazing, you know?

There have been exceptions to that though and generally people are very accepting and welcoming of those exceptions. I have posted plus size women several times who were met with nothing but a lot of enthusiasm and praise. Others have as well. I read and participate in that thread pretty regularly and have never heard anyone say anything on that thread that was truly offensive or out of line that I can remember. Obviously it’s your choice to avoid the thread and I understand that inclination but it just seems strange given that it’s not really an awful thread to begin with imo.

Also, it’s why I’ve made a concerted effort to participate in it from the beginning to keep it from being a thread of just those images. I tried to get other women to take part and it never really happened which is fine, I’m just saying. Inserting myself into that sphere has made it a less threatening thread that it may have seemed otherwise but I’ve been fairly pleasantly surprised that it’s always been pretty decent.

Evs, start a thread for “Running alongside the girls only thread” or something, maybe? We can have that discush there if you want.

This thread doesn’t say only!!

I specifically made it so it didn’t.

What I found most depressio was this:

-I posted a picture of Thom Yorke looking really quite, well, average. And the reaction from men was: wow, the fact that ppl lust after TY give hope to average to ugly dudes everywhere that hey, weird looking smart guys can be lusted after. I got the feeling that this felt really quite empowering or ego-boosting to a couple of the guys on the thread, and it was smiles and niceness all round.

-JM posted a picture of an absolutely stunning, physically perfect model, who happened to have a lot of freckles. The reaction was not initially “omg freckles amazing” (though that did happen later) but a kind of “wtf is wrong with that girl’s face” type negging.

And, as a woman who is quite seriously *not* perfect (the freckles all over my arms and shoulders are the least of my problem) it’s my o_0 that this woman, who is 1000 times more attractive than I will ever be. And even she is somehow not enough for a bunch of dudes on the interwebs who self admittedly look more like Thom Yorke than Ryan Gosling or Mark Ruffalo.

It’s that thing I know you’ve all talked about on this thread before, about how, like, straight women who are average looking expect to date men who are average looking, but men who are average looking expect to date, I dunno, Zooey D. And you can’t even *talk* to them about the expectations these images create without them getting all offended about it.

I was quite enjoying the blithe positivity and pseudo-obliviousness of this new-era Fotherington Thomas, by the way.

This is the weird thing, I am often a blithely positive person when I’m allowed to just be myself and go on about Cornish landscapes and Richard D James’ freckles or whatever without being worried. It’s the constant criticism and negging and clusterfucks that really wear me down and make me paranoid and unhappy. When my natural state, I really would rather be a Fotherington Thomas wandering about going “hullo SEA ARCHES hullo THOM YORKE’S CHEEKBONES!”

a million x-posts now I can’t keep up.

The reaction was not initially “omg freckles amazing” (though that did happen later) but a kind of “wtf is wrong with that girl’s face” type negging.

One dumb troll did that in an obviously ridiculous an annoying post that was ignored by everyone else.

I saw that post and said “asshole trying to get attention not worth my time” in my head and that was it.

it isn’t a thread about people we see on the street who are normal looking and amazing, you know?

First of all, there’s no reason for it NOT to be about that except that there are fewer pictures on the internet of “normal” people in their underwear and god forbid we run short of pictures of tits. But there are plenty of female thinkers, writers, musicians, WHATEVER who people could be expressing attraction to and they are practically never posted on the thread (today’s topical mention of PJ aside), which is almost 100% beauty policing in favor of primarily young skinny actresses whose sexual attractiveness has been carefully manufactured to appeal to a demographic.

One dumb troll = behaviour a lot more like most of the Beauty Industrial Complex (which I work inside every damn day and it’s killing me) and most of mainstream society at the moment. I just find it overwhelming sometimes.

If you don’t want this to be a girls’ only thread, I would ask if there’s any interest in starting another one that is, because I believe it’s important to have that space.

I can understand that, especially coming from the industry you work in. I just went back and checked though and it really was that one completely stupid comment and the rest of the ones about her were nothing but praise and compliments specifically about her freckles.

But there are plenty of female thinkers, writers, musicians, WHATEVER who people could be expressing attraction to and they are practically never posted on the thread (today’s topical mention of PJ aside), which is almost 100% beauty policing in favor of primarily young skinny actresses whose sexual attractiveness has been carefully manufactured to appeal to a demographic.

Yes! This! And I got into a really interesting discussion with a couple of ILX0rs on twitter a few months back about this. About the kind of pressure, that even women who are thinkers, writers, musicians, whatever, they have to appear in these “girl just sprawled all over this here sofa with her skirt all hiked up” photos which you would never see their male equivalents posed in? In order to be written about in very mainstream magazines, like, The Guardian Weekend?