IF YOU WANNA FIND LOVE THEN YOU KNOW WHERE THE CITY IS

Dress: STYLEWE

Socks: Target

Sandals: Teva 

So this is a funny story. For the past year, my mom has been sending me links from this site called STYLEWE. Her method of indirectly telling me I should ditch my weird sense of style and adopt a more Swiftian (as in Taylor Swift; not Jonathan Swift who I'm more sartorially akin to) way of dress. I opened one link, saw formfitting dresses and swiftly (ha) clicked out because, as you know, potato-sack chic is more my thing. From then on, I chose to ignore the flood of STYLEWE links in my email and texts. Sorry mom. 

8 months later, I get an email from STYLEWE asking me if I'll wear one of their products and feature it on my blog. Not making the connection that the STYLEWE that contacted me was my mom's beloved STYLEWE, I said sure because I'm a yes person. Scrolling through the site, I still didn't make the connection because they had all these gloriously kooky dresses. I sent my best friend Ronnie a milli links because I couldn't choose. There was a voluminous gray sweater dress. An adorable pink wool dress with stitched floral embellishments and a Peter Pan collar. This elegant powder blue midi dress. SO many options! I finally chose the above black number because it's versatile with ruffly flair! I can wear this to work, to a fancy schmancy event and to a lazy brunch with friends. 

When I got the package in the mail, I showed my mom and she was like, "OMG, it's STYLEWE, my favorite!" And I was like, "Que?" And she was like, "I send you links from them all the time! I check their site every morning!" And I was like, "HAHAHHAA, oops I stopped opening those links." So yeah, my mom freaked out and I laughed for an entire week because what the what. I don't know how they found me. Maybe the power of my mom's fandom created some sort of cosmic catalyst that resulted in this blogpost. So random. So hilarious. 

The moral of this story is that STYLEWE doesn't just sell tight, Taylor-Swift dresses. They also have dresses that fit my eccentric taste. Since the dress I chose is pretty tame, I decided to spruce it up with polka-dot socks and my iridescent Tevas. I felt like Man Repeller, which is always #outfitgoals. Some dude in the drive-thru of In-N-Out was also a really big fan of this get-up, so I'm not sure it succeeded in the literal man repelling sense...oh well, ya win some, ya lose some. I love it and that's what really matters. 

If you want to turn into my mom, you can voraciously consume STYLEWE's blog here and lurk their Pinterest here. My mom's going to be so stoked about this post. That is, if she reads this. She definitely reads STYLEWE's blog more than mine. It's ok. I'm not offended. Love you mom! 

:) 

Music

The 1975 all day errrrday

xx

Gossamer

Top: Vintage

Culottes: H&M

Sandals: Target

Summer is here and MakeSpace (an on-demand storage service that picks up, stores and delivers your stuff !!!) recently asked me what I'm wearing and I chose, quite possibly, the worst outfit for the hottest season. In my defense, it's been unusually cold in LA, like, 50 (or maybe I'm hyperbolizing and it's actually been 60 but it feels like 50 so we're going with 50) degrees. And since anything below 70 is scarf and heavy jacket weather here in Southern California, I thought this was the perfect outfit for a gloomy and gray day. But as soon as I stepped outside and started trekking around Silver Lake, the sun came out and the temperatures rose. So yeah, I pretty much sweated up a salty rainstorm in my thick wool dress-that-I-turned-into-a-top-because-it's-a-little-on-the-short-side. My friends told me to just take off my pants, which I almost did, but then I realized I was carrying a tiny red velvet backpack and had no place to store them, so I just decided to boil away in the name of fashion. I felt like The Row in this look so it was worth it. Sorta. 

Speaking of storing shiz, MakeSpace is definitely better than a tiny red velvet backpack. If you have a lot of clothes, like I do, MakeSpace can come and plop all your fall/winter clothes in a storage facility so you don't have to dig through heaps of sweaters and jackets to get to your summer dresses and shorts. This translates to more minutes of sleep in the mornings, which is always a victory. If you want to spend less time riffling through your closet and more time in bed, check out MakeSpace's self-storage locations here and click your way to a more seasonally-appropriate closet. 

Music

Moai Y Yo by Maria Usbeck

Uno De Tus Ojos by Maria Usbeck

Never Ending by Rihanna 

Love on the Brain by Rihanna 

Higher by Rihanna 

Close To You by Rihanna

(Listen to the last 4 songs in chronological order and try not to cry.)

xx

Lucerne Valley

Photos: Nicole Toczauer

saltwhipped soarings

a lightless dream

all components of

a particle adventure!

a-rolling down the Baptismal dust

incessant mismembered holy incantations

played during the crescendo flight

flowers fall

faded on a kind of destiny

chrysanthemumscatteredinjuries

welcome, babydoll, welcome

xx

DTLA

I want to tell you the names of places so alien I believe they exist only on paper: 

Auckland 

Oshkosh 

Tibet 

Brixton 

Brighton 

Kerry 

Odessa 

Santa Fe 

Kiev 

Brittany 

Osaka 

Kun’lun 

Tyrol 

Trieste 

Zanzibar 

Big Sur 

The sum of my feelings about each of these places begins and ends within its name; the few pictures thart name gives-off. Kent: mint sprig over the back of a fast horse heading toward the gravesite of her rider in fog. Dover: when the air tasted the way blue paint does licked off a bleached seashell.

My best friend recently sent me a collection of poems by a brilliant man named Marco Maisto. The above excerpt is one of my faves from the series because of the way Maisto masterfully manages to juxtapose nothing against everything. He opens with a list of places that have no meaning to him followed by sentences that further highlight his apathy and then he turns the tables on you and presents two places that have more meaning than you can ever grasp. You know this because of the very specific/quirky/enigmatic way he writes about these places. He wants to show you his ghosts but only in a way that you'll never 100% understand because can anyone truly understand someone else's ghosts? Do you want anyone to truly understand yours? Plus, they're not on the list. I had to go back and double check, which is why I love Maisto so much; reading his words is like walking through a maze of hidden gems, you're constantly backtracking to make sure you didn't miss something spectacular and when you go back you always find something mind-blowing. 

After reading these lines, I was hurled into my own haunts. Into my own Kents and Dovers. 

Carlsbad. Chicago. London.  

It is beautiful and it is tragic. The way a place can haunt you. For a while I was scared to go back to some of my places because it's hard to confront the memories you still want to live in. But recently I've learned to embrace the haunts. The places my subconscious self and my physical self always end up going back to. There's something poetic about it or maybe I'm just an emotional masochist. Who knows these things. As a cosmophage, however, I'm also voraciously exploring new places. Places that will perhaps, one day, serve as sources of ghostly memories themselves. See above for photos of me in those places. All shot by photographer extraordinaire Nicole Toczauer. 

Oh, and here's a list of songs that haunt me. 

Ordinary Girl by Rebelution

River Flows In You by Yiruma

Realize by Colbie Caillat 

Come Together by The Beatles 

Don't Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin

xx

On the Run

Beret: Vintage

Dress: Zara

Socks: Betsey Johnson

Shoes: Target 

Sunglasses: H&M 

I drove from Los Angeles to Yuma with nothing but a beret, a pair of sunglasses and a copy of Virgin Suicides. I drove for miles and miles and miles until I reached nothing but sand and sky. The kind of place where you find eternity in endless hills of gold and the deepest blue. Remember when we were 17 and you weren't ready to leave the familiarity of our small town and I was ready to be everywhere but Carlsbad? Now it's the opposite. Well, at least for me. I don't know what you think anymore. But I always end up returning to familiarity even when I'm running. 

I drove from Los Angeles to Yuma in an attempt to forget you. I drove from Los Angeles to Yuma because there are ghosts in Carlsbad. I drove from Los Angeles to Yuma and came here. Where no memories exist. Where you can walk forever and ever and ever and still be in the same place. Because that's the thing about places. You can drive for miles and miles and miles and still feel haunted. 

I still remember everything.

Man Repeller

Turtleneck: Zara

Trousers: Zara

Shoes: Target 

I'm never not in a turtleneck these days and this one's my favorite. Its blend of classic stripes with playful patches perfectly captures my new sartorial aesthetic. I decided to team this top with these mustard yellow, wide-leg trousers for an extra pop of color and '70s feel. Then, I tucked my hair in to give turtleneck hair a go. Felt v Man Repeller in this getup aka style goals achieved for the day woop woop! 

On the cultural side of things, my dear friend Davina Catt aka the UK editor of Interview Magazine slash Vogue writer slash filmmaker slash all-around creative girl boss is speaking to leading actress Olga Kurylenko about working with director Terrence Malick and other cinematic glories. If you're in London and enjoy arty, soul-feeding experiences, I recommend popping into the V&A on February 12. The event takes places in The Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre and starts at 6:30 PM. Tickets are 10 pounds. For more info, click here. 

If you go, take pictures but don't tag me on Instagram because I will bitterly bawl over the fact that you're in London doing ultra-cool London things and I'm not. Sigh, distance makes the heartbreak stronger. I'll be back one day. Oki bye I'm gonna watch the new Pretty Little Liars episode now because it's a Saturday night, baby, and I'm alive. (Also it's my guilty pleasure. I know.) 

xx

When We Were Young

Beanie: eBay

Sweater: H&M

Jeans: Wholesale Buying

Shoes: Target

From middle school to college, boys would ask me, "Did you pay full price for those jeans with holes in them?" And I'd respond, "Yup, I did." And they'd shake their heads in flabbergasted confusion and chortle a bemused, "I don't get it." Needless to say, I've been befuddling the opposite gender with my choice of denim since the early 2000s. 

For some reason unbeknownst to me (and clearly to the myriad of men who take it upon themselves to question my sartorial decisions), I've always had an affinity for destroyed denim. The sight of abrasions make my eyes sparkle and my bank account weep because "jeans with holes" are ironically quite pricey and no I can't make them myself. Believe me, I tried and epically failed.

But sometimes. Sometimes, the retail gods decide to #bless us plebic consumers with a pair of distressed denim in the perfect fit with the right amount of tears that (gasp!) don't cost an arm and a leg. 

The ones I'm wearing above, for example, are only 9 bucks. No, that's not a typo. They're 9 dolla dolla bills y'all. (See for yourself here.) Like...when does that ever happen? Well, I can tell you it happens all day errday on this Chinese e-commerce site called Wholesale Buying. They sell all the latest trends for basically pennies. Go take a peek for yourself if you don't believe me: wholesalebuying.com

On an entirely separate note, this article from Man Repeller was exactly what I needed this week. Given the alarming number of senseless and heartbreaking acts of violence occurring around the world these days, I think we all need some positive words in our lives. Let's also remember to try to understand and listen to different perspectives with peaceful empathy. Everyone has their own truths. Spread love, not hate.

Music

When We Were Young by Adele

Water Under the Bridge by Adele

Coffee by Miguel 

xx

I Know You Don't Understand

Scarf: Vintage

Top: Thrift Shop

High-Waisted Shorts: Forever 21

Booties: Target 

Sunnies: Ray-Ban

This outfit is a direct result of me reading too much Man Repeller except there is no such thing as reading too much Man Repeller because it is the bomb dot com. After a brief flirtation with minimalism, I realized that I can't do without a bit of quirk in my ensembles. So I've decided that my new, "adult" style will be French girl cool meets Leandra Medine's sartorial eccentricity. With the above look, I chose to create a simple but chic base by wearing a white button-down and high-waisted shorts, which I felt was tres French girl cool. Then, I added in a splash of Leandra's sartorial eccentricity with a technicolor neck scarf and leopard-print booties. My mum thought I looked like a flight attendant, which I can kinda see but whatever. I felt very "me" in this, which I haven't felt in a while. Cheers to that? 

For music, Ronnie found a leaked version of Lana's new song, "High by the Beach", which I'm absolutely obsessed with. Been listening to it on repeat for the past hour. My favorite line is, "You can be a bad motherfucker, but that don't make you a man." 

To listen, click here. 

I swear, my emotional life is a Lana Del Rey song. The entire Born to Die album is like umm Lana are we the same person? 

"Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why." 

xx