Posts tagged with "fashion"

29 1/12: The Adolescent

A lit­tle while ago, I stopped shav­ing. I had the flu for about five days, and already had a five-day shad­ow devel­oped when that began. Then with a lack of social engage­ments, I decid­ed to let it keep grow­ing, lest I lose such a gen­er­ous head start that only began because I was too lazy when I was sick.

I took this pic­ture, and it was more than three weeks with­out touch­ing a razor at that point.

Self portrait at 29 1/12

 

Aaron always keeps a neat­ly trimmed beard, so I asked him how he takes care of it; which direc­tion to shave, what length to start trim­ming, etc. It was strange to be seek­ing shav­ing advice from some­one at this point in my life. Most of the hair is around the mouth and on chin, with only an embar­rass­ing half-dozen wires sprout­ing ran­dom­ly from my cheeks, so it required a touch of main­te­nance.

For a long time, I did­n’t know what to think of it, whether I liked it or not. Aaron said to me, “Sometimes, you don’t need to know”, and I went with that for a while. Maybe time would give me an answer.

Soon after, I start­ed shav­ing again. It was­n’t get­ting any thick­er, and I did­n’t think I could pull it off.

I turn 30 in 11 months, and I still can’t grow a beard.

The Turning 30 Series

Horizontal Eyebrow Piercing

Horizontal eyebrow piercing 1

I should start by say­ing that I’ve want­ed a pierc­ing since late high school, either an eye­brow pierc­ing or a tongue stud1.

For some rea­son though, I nev­er seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered it. To me, it was like hav­ing chil­dren; one of those things you know you’d want some day, but don’t take it seri­ous­ly. Then last week, I was sit­ting at my desk and ran­dom­ly thought, “Why not?”. So I slept on it, and woke up the next day still want­i­ng one. That’s when I decid­ed to do it.

My biggest con­cern was that it would­n’t match me. Some peo­ple with pierc­ings look like they’re try­ing to over­com­pen­sate by being part of a “scene”, or by being younger (i.e. the midlife cri­sis, which my dad seems to be liv­ing out with three pierc­ings last year), or it just does­n’t fit their face. The last thing I want­ed to do was get some­thing that screamed atten­tion for the sake of it. Most peo­ple have told me that I’m a far cry from mid-life cri­sis age, but I’ve feel­ing much old­er late­ly.

So I fig­ured that I’d rather get it at this age, than when I’m in my fifties like my dad, when it looks ridicu­lous. But as Tiana remind­ed me, it’s much less per­ma­nent than a tat­too. If I don’t like it, I can just take the pierc­ing out with min­i­mal scar­ring (as long as there are no oth­er com­pli­ca­tions).

So I decid­ed to get a hor­i­zon­tal, because I find that ver­ti­cals are not real­ly my style (and alto­geth­er too com­mon for my tastes). The side seemed some­what arbi­trary to me, and I did­n’t decide which side until I did my hair one morn­ing and noticed that the part on my hair was on the right, and so it seemed like there was a more open space there for the pierc­ing to fit.

Continue read­ing “Horizontal Eyebrow Piercing”…

  1. My work in the den­tal indus­try, how­ev­er, has made me shy away from get­ting any­thing in the mouth, so that elim­i­nat­ed the only oth­er option for me. [↩]

Versace Frames

Versace glasses

I want­ed a bold­er look this time, since my last pair is much more sub­tle. Actually, they’re still my cur­rent pair, as I wear one or the oth­er, depend­ing on the mood.

Following the trend in most of my designs, I’m going for more con­trast and stronger state­ments.

They did­n’t sit quite cor­rect­ly on my face (or most Asian faces, the sales rep told me, as we have nar­row nose bridges), because they don’t have nose pieces. The frames would be too low for my face and my eye­lash­es would brush against the lens­es, so I had to order some nose pads to add on myself, et voilà. A per­fect fit.

Versace logos

Of note is the logo on the arms. This is the first time that I’ve seen the Versace logo like this, but fur­ther research indi­cates that it’s an uncom­mon­ly used alter­nate logo. I thought it was because the reg­u­lar logo would have lines that are too fine for small rep­re­sen­ta­tions, but that does­n’t appear to be the case, as I’ve seen it even small­er on watch­es and bracelets too. Which is just as well, as I would­n’t care to wear any­thing with the Medusa’s head on it.

Mittens Make It Up

Thumbnail: Club Monaco mittens

The win­ter storm watch con­tin­ued at ‑14°C today. When you’re inside, the sun fools you with the warmth of its colour, until you step out­side and feel the bite of the wind.

I spent an hour-and-a-half look­ing for var­i­ous things and run­ning errands down­town. The streets were packed, the stores were packed, and I found noth­ing.

So I spent a stu­pid amount of mon­ey on these awe­some mit­tens at Club Monaco. I actu­al­ly walked out of the store and out of the mall when I found them, for fear that I would pur­chase them, but alas, here they are on my hands. I had to decide between the white and black stripes, the grey and black stripes, and the flat grey ones, but since most of my cloth­ing is neu­tral, I decid­ed on the flashiest pair. The open hole for the fin­gers makes iPod and cam­era manip­u­la­tion easy. They’re 100% cash­mere; thin enough to wear indoors or inside your coat pock­et.

Thumbnail: Club Monaco mittens, RW&Co toque

So it was­n’t a total waste of a day.

Differing Perceptions

Julie's drawing of me

Julie drew this pic­ture of me. The details betray her per­spi­cac­i­ty.

Such as the way my shirt tails dan­gle insou­ciant­ly from the sweater. How the pant bot­toms are slight­ly bunched up. And while I don’t wear a tie that often, the prep­py top + skater bot­toms style is accu­rate. Even the length of chain and the shape of my glass­es. All the lit­tle details I think about when I dress myself. The only thing that isn’t me is the hair, which falls flat in the win­ter, due to the fact that it’s toque wear­ing sea­son.

Also, I have no eyes, nose or mouth is this pic­ture. Only my wide-arm glass­es, which I’ve said before is a large part of my iden­ti­ty. Obviously, her exclu­sion of my facial fea­tures has put even more empha­sis on this.

I won­der: why are my arms drawn behind my back? Posture says a lot about a per­son. Maybe this was done with­out any con­sid­er­a­tion, but maybe there was sub­con­scious intent.

It’s always inter­est­ing to find out how oth­er peo­ple see you. A self-image is often biased.

So which image is more accu­rate; yours or theirs?