Until the lookbook came out.

Sadly, I wasn’t that impressed; not too much stood out to me. It was alright, I guess. I’d probably crushed everything with the weight of my expectation. Nonetheless, last night, in dire need of some shopping stress relief, I tripped on over to the local Target. The collection has only been out for about 4 days at this point, but by god, was that rack picked dry. Still, I was able to pick up a couple things to try on. And what a disappointment. The material was, in general, coarse to the touch and cheap to the eye. Sweaters were scratchy and cheap, the fits of everything mysterious (the XS sizes engulfed, but the numbered sizes varied WILDLY- more on that in just a bit). I was only able to find 3 dresses in my size, and here they are, in shaky hasty iphone photo form:

Anna Sui for Target Silk Patterned Dress

I’m not exactly sure why I picked this one up; it definitely isn’t my style. I think I just grabbed it because it was amongst the scant offerings of what was in my size and well, I was curious. I’m undecided about this. I think the waist is too high and there’s just a little something TOO circus girl from the 1950s about this. I think this was a “Jenny” dress. She’s into the big puffy skirts when she’s not doing her crazy drug-addict going through a stick of eyeliner a day look.

Anna Sui for Target Metallic Jacquard Dress

Again, not really my style, but in my size, so I figured I’d try it on. Bad, shaky photo, but I think the polyester looked pretty terrible. And that fit, ugh! It looks like I’m trying to hide a secret pregnancy. Completely, horrifyingly unflattering, and also just WAY too big and loose, even for something that had to be cinched with a fabric belt. I think this was supposed to be a Serena dress? I suppose she wears a lot of shiny, huge, floaty things, but the material of this dress was simply too unforgiving to do anything for the shape.

Anna Sui for Target Houndstooth Jaquard

This was the only dress from the collection that interested me from the lookbook. Reader, I have a terrible confession to make. I totally fell in love with this dress. It flatters the figure, the cut is fantastic, it’s the classic Anna Sui colours, and the subtle metallic sheen to the fabric is so, so pretty. Only, it didn’t fit: it wouldn’t zip up all the way in the back. So, well, I still bought it. On the impulse that maybe, just maybe, this would be a dress that one could get on with assistance. Sadly, it was not the case. In any case, I’m either going to return it or sell it. This was a Blair piece, and not hard to see why: structured, classy, but with a little bit of bite.

Ok, here’s the part where I have to rant about not my disappointment, not the fabric, but the totally arbitrary and strange sizing. I’d heard this was under “juniors” sizing, but everything was wildly all over the place. XS pieces meant to drape didn’t drape, they were like blankets from an alien world engulfing me. And the number sizes were a white hot mess. Each of the dresses I tried above was a size 3, which works out because I wear a 2 or a 4 in America. The Jenny dress fit fine, the Serena dress was WAY too big, and I couldn’t zip up the Blair dress all the way. I also grabbed this lace number in a 5 on a whim. It was so small, I couldn’t even get it over my head! The clothes were clearly built for the small-busted; if you can’t tell from these pics, I am itty-bitty in the chest area- but I still felt like these were too constraining in that area, and if a flatty like me is having trouble, what the hell is the rest of America, who, well, actually have breasts, going to think?

Oh, Anna Sui. Well. I’ll forgive you if you send me one of your Houndstooth Jaquards in a zip-uppable 5.

1. JUMPSUITS

I don’t think I’ve worn one of these ever, though I vaguely remember my sister and I may have had matching jumpsuits at some point when I was 4 or 5, and given that was 20 or so years ago, I’m not really capable of remembering the specifics. Ok I am going to be a little bit TMI here. There’s really no way to get out of one of these without taking the whole thing off, so if you’ve popped one of these on for a night out and you’ve had a little too much to drink, how on earth do you go to the bathroom? Maybe because I don’t own any of these there’s a secret that jumpsuit owners know that I don’t; if there is, feel free to leave it in a comment as I’m dying to know. A friend told me it’s just like wearing a swimsuit onesie, but I’m a bikini girl and have never encountered any problems while wearing a swimsuit when nature calls, so, you know, I dunno.

2. OVER THE KNEE BOOTS

I’ll get behind (and into) some pretty strange, uncomfortable, hard to walk in boots but honestly these just go beyond my comfort zone. It’s already enough of an effort in some shoes to walk around without falling on my ass but not being able to really move my knees seems like it’d post more problems than they’re worth. Also I am genuinely curious, how do you sit down? I also imagine it can’t be too sexy to have your boyfriend or sig other remove these as it’d involve an unnecessary, probably awkward, and possibly tiring amount of pulling. Sadly I do think about these things, if only out of, you know, consideration and such, and also because I hate anything that takes too much trouble to disrobe out of in private twosome moments.

3. HARLEM PANTS

You’d think I’d be on board for these because bellydance is one of my hobbies. Maybe it’s because I’m only like, 5′2″ and already know there’s no chance in hell these would look remotely good on me, but I don’t think I’ve seen these look flattering on ANYONE when just walking around on the street. No offense if you wear harlem pants, maybe they work for you, but if a 6 foot 5 model looks like she’s kind of wearing 2 strangely wrapped bags on her legs, chances are you’re not much better off. If you’re bellydancing and moving the fabric around and have it paired with a fancy bralette ensemble (ie a dance COSTUME) it looks fine, but if you’re just hanging out or walking down the street I’m probably wondering why you made the decisions in life you did.

I have pretty extreme opinions when it comes to certain things or items of fashion but it really is a your mileage may vary kind of thing, which is what fashion and dressing yourself really is. If any of these items work for you, more power to you! Personally though I know I’d look pretty terrible wearing them which is what largely formed my opinion. Sometimes I feel like I have to be careful about sharing my opinion though; when I was living in Japan I once totally went off on how much I hated the crop tailored work shorts culotte trend and how everyone was wearing them only to have the sweet Japanese friend I was with later embarrassedly remove her trench to reveal that she was wearing the very item of clothing I’d been ridiculing over lunch. I felt like a total tool for the rest of the afternoon.  So take my rantings with a grain of salt. If you love ‘em, love ‘em! If you don’t, well, like me, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion.

First spied this in Anthropologie’s latest catalogue when it found its way to my mailbox and was surprised at how floored I was. I used to be a full-on Anthropologie girl back when I was an overly young schoolteacher, and then a naive gallerina. I would literally walk from my job as an art gallery director down to the metro everyday to go home and pass Anthropologie on the way and duck in EVERY day to see what had been added to the mark-downs section. Since then my style (..and.. well.. personality maybe but let’s not go into that today) has shifted from sweet soft ruffled poet to bitchy existential rocker-wannabe, so I’m more TopShop/Preen/Burberry Prosum/vintage than I am Anthro these days. However, was totally blown away by the scattering of tiny studs all the way down the back of these beautifully structured boots. I am however not as enraptured with the $428 price tag, so I’m going to keep a look out for a good pair of vintage boots to self stud. Sometimes a girl needs to bring the meteor shower with her.

It’s turning out to be one of those work weeks, the ones where you get off work at 9 pm and there are still people at the office making you feel like a total slacker to be leaving as early as 9 pm and all you want to do is get in your car and drive, just drive, keep driving, don’t stop driving. I’ve been listening to music geared to keeping me sane, and Owl City’s romantic, delicately tempered Postal Service-esque electronica has been doing a pretty good job of keeping my head above the water. My favourite line of this song: To my motion fatigue- farewell

In other news, I’ve been slogging through the absolute hell that is finding a good dress to wear to a couple upcoming weddings. I really don’t wear dresses that often and the ones I have tend to be casual or a bit sporty or frankly kind of weird so I’m bamboozled when it comes to proper event dressing. Too many factors: price range, appropriateness (nothing I wouldn’t be afraid to wear in front of a friend’s grandmother), colour, cut, whether it can transition from day to night, nothing bridesmaidy, nothing that could detract attention from the bride, nothing too boring, something that still has enough of your own style in it, uuugh. So far the search has yielded a lot of near hits but mostly misses; I’m being very picky and  horribly stubborn in my thinking that if I’ve been invited to share a friend’s special day I should at least look nice (…but not TOO nice… you get the point…) Aaaaaaghhhh…. is it the weekend yet? City fun, volunteering with disabled kids, kites, and a bento picnic await me…