Posts tagged with "fashion"

New Glasses: Wide-Arm Wireframes

Thumbnail: Colour is gunshot metal
Thumbnail: Front view
Thumbnail: Side detail, D&G logo
Thumbnail: Side view
Thumbnail: White designer case
Thumbnail: The branding on the case
Thumbnail: Texture of pad printed fabric

I final­ly got some new glass­es. It’s been years since I had my pre­scrip­tion updat­ed and things in the dis­tance were start­ing to get blur­ry, mak­ing my eyes tired very ear­ly in the day. This time I got a wire-frame pair, instead of the thick emo frames I got last year, though they’re still D&>.

The wide arms are in now, but I real­ly don’t like that style (or maybe it just does­n’t fit my face). I also tend to not buy any­thing that’s cur­rent­ly fash­ion­able, as I pre­fer clas­sic designs. The wide wire-frame arms on this pair push the whole idea of trendy, but are oth­er­wise accept­able.

I’m still get­ting used to the weight. They’re very light, but still not as light as my last com­mon­ly worn pair, which were like not wear­ing glass­es at all. The good thing, I’ve come to dis­cov­er, is that they’re not flex­i­ble, and while this makes them more frag­ile, they’re much eas­i­er to clean as they don’t bend when try­ing to hold steady.

Some peo­ple ask me why I don’t get con­tacts, and it’s because glass­es are a part of my per­son­al­i­ty. In a way, they define me, stay­ing in touch with my dorky past. At the wed­ding Tom asked me to take them off for the pic­tures since they turn pho­to grey from UV light, but I refused. I think I would have looked stranger with­out my glass­es, then with my eyes obscured by tint.

Choosing these frames took a cou­ple of vis­its. I had a hard time trust­ing Bronwen’s opin­ion because some­times she thinks I look good in things that make me either laugh or hurl. I went to Lenscrafters with Aaron and he tried on one pair that imme­di­ate­ly made me think that’s the one, but I did­n’t have that instant­ly recog­ni­tion with mine. Louise did though when I showed her, and that’s when I decid­ed on them. Apparently they make me look more mature, or some shit.

Styles of Spring/Summer 2007

Tristan & America Get Their Groove Back

Thumbnail: America 1
Thumbnail: America 2
Thumbnail: America 3
Thumbnail: America 4

It appears that the heav­en­ly bod­ies have aligned against me in a cos­mic joke.

Let me explain. The trends at Tristan & America this sea­son are actu­al­ly sen­si­ble, and this is coin­cid­ing with the first time in my life that I’m in debt.

I used to shop at T&A years ago. With ribbed sweaters and sharp silk ties, they always had a clas­sic sense of fash­ion. Around 2002 the style turned into what I can only describe as urban cow­boy. Dress shirts were adorned with tas­seled fringes and pre-worn edges. Mannequins even had the Texan string tie. For the next four years they exper­i­ment­ed, what I’d con­sid­er a strong euphemism, with dif­fer­ent styles, until this sea­son.

The spring/summer col­lec­tion has gone back to it’s clas­sic roots, with a love­ly blend of earthy tones. I like to stay with neu­tral colours — though noth­ing pas­tel — because I don’t like my clothes to make bold state­ments. I pre­fer to hide my per­son­al­i­ty, what I’m think­ing, and let my actions speak for them­selves.

New clothes are def­i­nite­ly more of a want than a need, so it’s hard for me to jus­ti­fy going fur­ther into debt to add more to an already full clos­et.

Maybe I’ll wait until it goes on sale at the end of sum­mer. The prob­lem, espe­cial­ly at T&A, is that the small sizes dis­ap­pear with­in days.

The cos­mic gods, they’re laugh­ing at me.

Khaki Ressurection

The zip­per on my khakis jammed and prompt­ly died at a rather inop­por­tune time (well, I guess there’s nev­er real­ly an oppor­tune time for such a thing). When I brought them in to get fixed, I real­ized that I did­n’t have a back­up pair.

I only buy khakis at Randy River, the store with the wii­i­ide-legs that near­ly cov­er my foot with shoes off. Even the Dickies relaxed-fit work-wear series aren’t wide enough, and they’re too stiff for my taste. They also lack a dou­ble-rein­forced back leg cuff, which I like cause all my pants touch the ground.

The only prob­lem with R2 is that the small­est size they have for pants is 30. As I found out when get­ting mea­sured for the wed­ding, I’m actu­al­ly a 26 waist, but I pre­fer 28–29 max so I can wear them low on the hips. When they’re 30, I have to cinch up my belt because oth­er­wise they’re real­ly low.

This sea­son, the R2 khakis are all very dark with slight orange tones, and car­go pock­ets or frayed edges. Really not my style. At least I got my cur­rent pair back with­in a week. Hopefully they’ll sur­vive me until next sea­son.

Fall of the Ben cut

They dis­con­tin­ued the Ben wide-leg cut from Bluenotes. Instead, they’ve come out with a new Walker boot-cut. Off the shelf, the Walker cut real­ly reminds me of the flare they put on girls jeans back when I was in high-school, but I only say this cause I like to give Aaron a hard time about it. They look good on him, but he can pull off any­thing.

Bluenotes is the only place I buy jeans, and jeans are the only thing I buy at Bluenotes. It’s because of the Ben cut that I go there (and cer­tain­ly not their pop-cul­ture silk-screened shirts). When I found out they aren’t being made any­more, I had to buy the last three pairs on the rack — two 29s and a pair of 28s.

Oh Ben. You define me.

What will I do for jeans now when they all wear out? For the last cou­ple years I’ve done prep­py tops with skater bot­toms, but maybe my style will change by then.

Kilted Groomsmen

“You’re the per­fect woman.”

She real­izes this as she writes down my chest, waist, and hip size, then asks rhetor­i­cal­ly, “What are the typ­i­cal­ly ide­al mea­sure­ments?”.

Aaron and I could only look at each oth­er, as we had no idea.

“36–26–36.”

“Wow, so you’re a real­ly hot chick!”, says Aaron.

Hi-LAR-ious. Years of con­fi­dence I’ve gained, girl­friends con­vinc­ing me that I’m not too skin­ny, gone.

Reduced to a male fan­ta­sy, I’m my own dream girl.

“And how much do you weigh?”

“(Pause)…113”.

“After he’s had a buf­fet”, Aaron adds. My friend the come­di­an. To con­sole me, he says, “It’s okay. Remember, you’ll be paired up with Jenn in the par­ty”.

My coun­ter­part. The tini­est girl I know.

Thumbnail: Aaron's wedding band

In the last few years I’ve been to wed­dings for oth­er friends, but Aaron’s the first out of my core group to get mar­ried (although Pat got engaged before him). To pay trib­ute to his cul­ture, he wants the wed­ding to be a bit Scottish — some­thing his Popa is espe­cial­ly pleased about.

As a grooms­man, I’ll be wear­ing a kilt. As a Chinese guy, I’ll be feel­ing a lit­tle out-of-place.

Thumbnail: Matching the sporran and kilt colours
Thumbnail: Comparing sporrans
Thumbnail: Ghillie Brogues
Thumbnail: Ghillie Brogues

He asked me to give him a hand in shop­ping for the regalia. What a cul­ture shock. Looking through cat­a­logues of claid­heamh, sporrans, Sgian Dubhs, Ghillies Brogues. I can’t even pro­nounce the names. My tongue was­n’t made for these kinds of inflec­tions.

“It’ll take you guys longer to get dressed than the bride”.

Before we leave I remem­ber to ask, “Can we go tra­di­tion­al?”, with Aaron adding, “My Popa would be pret­ty upset if we did­n’t”.

Traditional. The euphemism for com­man­do. The euphemism for bear-ass naked.

“Don’t wor­ry, every­thing is dry-cleaned”, say the woman reas­sur­ing­ly.

It’s only after we leave that I real­ize every­thing but the shirt is made of wool.

I’ll be scratch­ing my balls through the whole ser­vice.

Slightly Emo Frames

Thumbnail: Me with new glasses

Thumbnail: New glasses

Got a new pair of specs. I want­ed either thick­er rims, for a bold­er look, or han­dles screwed into the glass with­out rims, for an even sim­pler look than what I have now. After try­ing on both styles, I decid­ed on the thick­er rims. Since these aren’t tita­ni­um, they’re sev­er­al times heav­ier than my old pair, so I keep the old pair around for when I’m relax­ing or doing sports. The fun­ny thing is that this is one of the least expen­sive pairs of glass­es I’ve ever pur­chased, yet they’re D&> made.

An Odd Mood Lately

I spend my time squar­ing away every­thing in my room so that I’m com­fort­able enough to write. The extra cables are gone, as well as the ran­dom receipts and bus trans­fers that some­how end up on the car­pet. My mir­rors are all in place, mak­ing the room seem twice as big, but I when I look I only see myself, slouched com­fort­ably in my chair, hood over my head. Even Dolly has won­dered in to lay her­self flat on the emp­ty floor. By the time I’m done clean­ing, I’m at a loss for all the things I’ve been try­ing to get into well struc­tured para­graphs.

A new episode of Trailer Park Boys is play­ing on Showcase, and I’m watch­ing it with the sound off because too much infor­ma­tion would ruin the fourth sea­son, some­thing I’m deter­mined to see in order from the begin­ning. Ricky’s in a high school, com­plete­ly out of place as a thir­ty-some­thing man in shop class try­ing to make some hash or grow some weed or har­vest some kind of nar­cot­ic, and this only adds to my amuse­ment.

I’ve been let­ting my hair grow out, à la Matt Heafy in the video for Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr. Somehow, I’ve only now dis­cov­ered that my hair nat­u­ral­ly grows towards the front, and by brush­ing it for­ward, it still looks respectable when I haven’t had it cut in a month and a half.

I’ve been in an odd mood late­ly. Thoughts branch off in my mind, but noth­ing seems sol­id enough to fol­low through. Inspiration always comes the day after today.