Faux fur dress and leather pants

PEACE FOR ALL OF US!!! YAY!!! That's the grand hope, the dream.

You may note that I have boosted my font. I was so tired of that weeny eeny font. What was I thinking?! Of course that original font setting happened six years ago when I thought reading glasses were an option, not a requirement. Hahaha!! 

I frickin' love this outfit. The dress is courtesy of my friend Shelley, Forest City Fashionista, who has graced this blog many a time for her style, humour, intelligence, and friendship. The dress is faux fur, grey, with a lightning-bolt-type overlay on the front. I call it my Flintstones meets David Bowie meets Lost in Space Dress.

The groovy tights love this shift dress. I hoisted the hem a bit to show you a little psychedelic leg action. Heh. The boots, also groovalicious, I got at Value Village a little while ago, stretch leather, made in Italy, new condition. The earrings are from a great haul I had a couple of years ago at My Sister's Closet eco thrift boutique, proceeds to the Battered Women's Shelter Services.

And next - ta dah!! This is the director's edit of my new video, slightly longer than the IG version.

My new video! 

This was a fun challenge to film with a tripod - just one indoor take and two outside. I didn't have time to fark around because people were walking up and down the sidewalks. 

When I was trying to get up from the bench, a couple of concerned women nearby almost came over to give me a hand. I was impressed because it meant my acting was convincing - I can in fact move in these pants, kind of. Next time, I need a sign that says, "No, it's just tight leather pants. But thanks." 

When I bought these pants they had little rips in the seams by the knees from a former owner who apparently also had navigational difficulties. I put clear tape over them. Fixed!! I'll get around to a proper repair sometime.

Above, the full outfit.

And look, I'm windsurfing! In the stairwell! Seriously, who wants the fuss of annoying wind, water, wetsuits, towels, know-how, and a windsurfing board? This is the only way to do sports.

One final shot with my Partridge Family Baggies, which I also wore last week, and my Jamin Puech bag. Every time I carry this bag I whip it around. I know I should be more reserved with it, seeing as how it's a high fashion brand and all, but who says high fashion can't be whipped about with joy too, right? A good whipping-about of one's clothes is testament to it's joy factor, I say.

That's all for this time. I'll link up with Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style and Catherine at Not Dressed as Lamb for #iwillwearwhatilike.

I raise a toast to everyone. May you feast and be merry. And whether you celebrate a specific holiday or not, the sales on unsold sweets will soon be upon us, and that's definitely something to celebrate. Hurray!

Thanks so much for visiting. Hugs all around.

You faltered

Was it my gold sequins? Electric pink lipstick? Maybe my high-heel biker boots. Whatever it was, it caught your eye - and your imagination - and you faltered. I saw it. You were thinking - and you may have even told me - that you wish you could wear what I'm wearing but you couldn't possibly "pull it off."

Dear, oh dear.

"Get away with it" and "pull it off" - that's what bank robbers and hard-core criminals say when they've pulled a job and eluded the coppers. But now it usually refers to the daring of wearing a splodge of aubergine with - gasp! - orange. Have our standards of risk-taking sunk to such lows?

How did we get from bank-robbing to clashing colours as criminal behaviour? What does this say about our standards? What's next? Your partner brings home some laundry detergent and you offer a night of wild sexual favours in return? (Okay ---, I know this is de rigeur for you, but for everyone else, you know what I'm saying?)

One day I bumped into a friend while I was shopping and we ended up talking about style, as usual. He dresses for New York; I dress for wherever I happened to land that day, so we have a lot in common. I was whining about the lack of magazines for deviant women over 50, especially in Canada, and how our preeminent magazine for that demographic, targeted to "boomers with zip," was definitely NOT FOR ME.



To give you an example, it has a SPIRIT section which features: happiness, faith, obituaries, nostalgia/humour. There is excessive coverage of British royals and Hollywood from news feeds and an emphasis on getting Canadian seniors to sign up for CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. So now we're simply known as fish, bottom-feeders at that. That's something to carp about (bwahaha, couldn't help myself). [Edit: The mag has been slightly revamped and the obits are gone. Genius move!]

Wearing "Dressed to Piss You Off" T-shirt made for me by Suzanne Carillo, maxi denim coat she scouted for me at Talize thrift store, psychedelic tights, low heel ankle boots, and jewels, JEWELS! 

He suggested that I write up a pitch for the kind of magazine I'd like to see, and although I knew our banter was more sport than business, I decided to do the exercise anyway. Here's what I came up with:

Anna Wintour on crack in paint-splattered vintage bell bottoms and a frayed sequin halter top, shrieking, "Stop telling me what to do!" An anti-style-bullying magazine for boomer/Gen X women gone wild, and a sexy, fun flirtation with the wild side for armchair fashionistas. Ba-bye retirement planning, hello hellcats.

I'm going to hook this up with:

Anne at SpyGirl, 52 Pick-me-up: Aqua, Vanity, Transformation

Patti at Not Dead Yet Style, Visible Monday

Cathering at Not Dressed as Lamb, #iwillwearwhatilike. 

I haven't been making the rounds as I hoped - too much work!! But I glance through. You guys are schtellar. You're all schtars, I tell you! It's the colour on the inside that counts!

Is it comedy or is it simply life?

Look who's wearing the big pants now!

Pants as in trousers, but not just trousers: my palatial vintage palazzo pants, fully lined so they swish. The fuchsia of the ruffled blouse clashed madly with the red in the pants. Luckily, both sides surrendered in a detente refereed by an elastic orange neutral zone. Treaties were ratified and eaten. I was elected president. Hurrah.

No matter how I style these pants, I can never come close to Curtise of The Secondhand Years in her unforgettable RED Valentino pants, made even more so by her always-witty text. Here. Her pants are the stuff of blogging legend.

Next outfit:

I'm standing in poo. I thought it was important to share that with you. Urban parkland. Man or beast, who's to know? Was this some of kind of cosmic life lesson on the dangers of veering off the beaten path? Or a comment on this selfie/outfit? Have you ever tried to clean poo from glitter booties?

I bought that anime denim tunic/dress from a consignment shop during the meetup. Now I know it's too short for comfort without jeggings or pants -  next time. But I love the psychedelic tights.

And a new comedy video. 

In it I'm recovering from the let-down of the awards ceremony and the discovery that my statuette is in fact a rubber glove over a dumbbell, not "gold made to look like rubber," which they told me.

The clip is also based on some emails with Suzanne Carillo and Sue of  A Colourful Canvas (we're bound for life after the meetup). This video is in part a response.

Oops! This video was a limited-run feature. It is now closed. These are stills from the video.

I also got a couple of AWESOME packages in the mail from Sheila of Ephemera and made a video of that, but I'll save it for the next post. I don't want you to barf from overload.

You've come a long way baby! 

- referring to these pants for surviving the decades intact. Yeeeah. 

I'm linking this up to Anne of SpyGirl and her 52 Pick-me-up: Honey/Service/Loyalty. The pants have a couple of shades of honey and their service is keeping my lower half decent in a groovy way. Also, the day I wore this outfit I bought a cell phone - I promptly returned it the next day. Close call.

After my last couple of snarky and also crude posts, I lost a few followers. I'm afraid things will only get worse from here.

How's your week been?

My scroogy Valentine's day

I leapt out of bed and immediately flung open the window.
"Oy, Boy, you down there, what day is today?" I shouted to the miscreant on the sidewalk.
"Why, Miss (heh), this is Valentine's Day, 2015."
I clapped my hands and jumped with glee. Then I threw a 20-dollar-bill down to the feckless youth.
"Boy, hie thee to the nearest hosiery shop and buy me some psychedelic-patterned leggings!" His eyes grew big with astonishment. "And keep the change!" I laughed.
"Begging your pardon, Miss, there's no feckin' way you'll get psychedelic leggings in this town for under 20 bucks," and he took off down the alley with the money.
It was then I remembered I have a pair of psychedelic tights, the next best thing to leggings, and I ran excitedly to put them on.

I was provoked into wearing these psychedelic-patterned tights today, with a great heaping of jewellery and a short tight skirt, after reading a conservative style advice article yesterday in mainstream media. Happily, provocation is a sure-fire way to push me to new heights in style, art, and attitude. 

Note my new haircut by O. Yes, confession, O cuts my hair. Nobody, high salon or low, comes close to his talent with scissors. Almost all of the white hair from bleaching is gone now but I'll happily stick with this silver for a while, although my hair at the back is still dark.

If someone were to ask me, what's your style, after prevaricating for years I would direct them to these photos. Sitting at my cafe table today turned into a book-signing-without-a-book as strangers of all ages leaving the cafe stopped by to share their admiration of my highly inappropriate clothing. 

My pissed off face

I'm wearing my thrifted shag coat, thrifted Miu Miu boots, and a sample sale skirt rolled down at the waist in a scandalously slovenly fashion and hiked salaciously above the knee. The tights were retail, sadly, more than 20 bucks. The awesome "Dressed to piss you off" T-shirt was a gift custom-made for me by Suzanne Carillo and fit the occasion perfectly. All of the jewellery is thrifted, except the magic loupe O made me. I did my eyes too, for a change. I wish you could have seen my rock-star walk with this billowing shag coat; I was feeling sublime. 

I am always astounded how a negative feeling can bloom into something so staggeringly satisfying in the end.

If someone tells you you can't do something style-wise, how do you usually respond? Have you always reacted in that way?