is this the real life? (liebster award)

Hey, people. The long title is what happens when I am up at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Kani A. from The Style Monster (how could you not like that name?) nominated me for a Liebster Award. *woot woot* We all know the rules, but here they are again:

-You must shared 11 things about yourself.
-Answer the 11 questions that your tagger has given you.
-Choose 11 other blogs for the nomination. Nominees must have under 200 followers on Google Friend Connect.
-Leave 11 questions for your nominees.
-Lastly, thank the person that nominated you and link back to their blog. (Thanks, Kani!)
 

11 things about myself:
1. I am going into my freshman year of high school.

WHOA.

That's really hard to process, because I started this blog in seventh grade and now I'm going into a new world, one that is so, so different from the one that I got so used to.
2. I'm contemplating dying some of my hair green before school starts backs, mostly because one of my friends, Lula, has green hair and insists that she leaves proof of herself in my hair. (Peer pressure ugh)
3. My very favorite movies are Heathers and A Clockwork Orange.
4. I am currently in the process of trying to make my own shirts via iron transfer paper which may or may not result in tears.
5. I dance. (Ballet and modern, which I start to believe I'm good at until I see myself. But I still love dancing. It's a huge part of my life.) Hopefully I'll summon up enough courage to dance in my school's talent show, or at least try out.
6. I'm currently working on a book list for Urban Outfitters (!) to display along with the books that I recommended. The theme is coming-of-age tales. Exciting, right?
7. I'm an only child.
8. I don't own a cell phone. I think I'm pretty much happy that I don't, to be completely honest. The only inconvenience is not being able to call someone when I really need to (i.e. if I'm stuck somewhere), but other than that, I'm free from others and I get to enjoy life more rather than being trapped by the immaculate screen of an iPhone. 

9. Something that really interests me is someone reinventing his- or herself, especially since I'm starting a new school. I don't feel as if what I wear really reflects who I am, or what I say sometimes. I want to be able to dress how I want to, and say what is on my mind. I'm sick of being shy or censoring myself.
10. I wish I were funnier/wittier.
11. I have a considerably dark personality, which many people don't realize. I guess I'm cynical? A lot of people have said that I am. 

Kani's Questions:
1. Your favorite childhood movie?
Hmm. Childhood is pretty broad, so I'll say either Finding Nemo or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
2. What's the last thing you read (article or book)?
I reread The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
3. What album would be the soundtrack to the movie of your life?
Oooh, good one. Either a Nirvana's Nevermind or Suspiria, which is a CD I burnt with a bunch of punk/New Wave/gothic songs from the 1980s (and possibly '90s, not sure) and the song from the Zero Day trailer, along with Patti Smith's cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." 

4. Would you rather watch something being made or just see the finished product?
It depends. The answer would differ if it were a DIY or a movie.5. What do you do first when you have writer's/artist's block?
I either get annoyed/angry in general or at myself, or go read/look at something inspiring. Both at the same time also work. 6. Describe yourself in 5 words or less.
Awkward/maladroit, talkative, writer, friendly, and realist. 

7. Your favorite thing to drink?
Water or berry punch.8. Your favorite place, fictional or real (other than your hometown)?
My current favorite place is the town in Ghost World. 
9. Reality television: yes or no. And why?
No. Only a few of them are worth watching, like Project Runway or The Face or Breaking Pointe. My answer is no because in all honesty, they're really stupid if you strip them down to their framework. You absorb all of your time into them and then realize: why do I care? There are loads of more interesting things in my own life that I could be doing instead of watching this housewife get ready for her dinner party. 
10. Top song to sing when you're at home?
Right now it's either "Blister in the Sun" or "Kiss Off" by Violent Femmes.11. Do you like musicals? If so, what's your favorite?
I do!! I'm a theater geek. Right now my favorites are Chicago, Cabaret, and Broadway's Matilda. 

My 11 questions for the nominees:
1. What is your best memory ever?
2. What song describes your life?
3. If you could have one mystery in history solved, what would it be?
4. What blogs do you read daily?
5. How long do you think you will continue your blog for?
6. Best experience ever?
7. If you could go to any band's concert, defunct or still in action, what band's would it be?
8. Are you an optimist, a pessimist, or a realist?
9. Are you truly happy?
10. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
11. If you could offer a newborn child one piece of advice, what would it be?

My nominees are:
Eryn from Style Orbit
Essine from Psychedelic Daisy
Chloe from Rhinestone Moon
Ibe from Mademoiselle Rossele
Maddie from Silly Innocent Girl

Sinead from Peppermint Whiskers 
Ruby from Ruby.

Brie from Teenage Chariot
Maggie from Style Walrus
Eva from Style Wandering (not sure how many followers she has but I'm too tired to check)

Gwen from Under a Bridge 

(Part two of my Resort '14 reviews will be up later today! Also, if you have any questions for me, ask them at www.ask.fm/britneyfranco)

                                                             xxBritney

sheer genius (resort '14 review pt. 1)

Today my mom and I went to MoMA for the Rain Room exhibit but left after waiting for a bit after realizing that it probably wasn't worth it. (I got the same experience later on when I walked through actual rain with an umbrella, for free.) We walked around Rockefeller Center for a few hours, stopping at various shops and such. We went to H&M, and I wasn't sure if I would find anything worth buying, but I did. There was this amazing pair of jeans that my mother persuaded me to try on, which I am grateful for because WOWZA. People say that the right pair of jeans can transform a person. I don't know if it was that extreme, but I definitely felt upbeat wearing them and a tad more self-assured. (I don't base self confidence on what I wear, but these jeans are different. They are on the same level as those pants from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, except these are not to be shared. Ever. I don't care how close we are.)

Anyway, I didn't think that my outfit was really worth posting on here; it was nice, and gave me a chance to wear my giant Heathers button, but not particularly blogworthy. Since I still wanted to do a post, I decided that I would use today to sum up some of my favorite looks from the Resort 2014 collections.  

1. Jean Paul Gaultier
             
             


             
             

My three absolutely favorite parts of JPG's Resort '14 collection are the use of sheer material (especially in the second picture, for the sheer coat that is incredibly lovely), the use of fishnets, and the jacket in the last picture (click to enlarge). The silhouettes and tailoring in this one were really good (see: last two pictures). But back to the use of sheer material: I like the fact that the subtly of it made it quite blatant if you think about it. Instead of having outright sheer pieces, the material was used as sleeves, parts of tops, and different places in dresses and pants. 

There are an equal amount of good draping and tailoring which I mentioned before, and then there was a mixture of the two, which is even better, because why choose between the two? There was also a balance between prints and more minimalistic colors, although I chose not to add pictures of a good amount of the printed pieces because they weren't really anything that would make you look twice. Overall, I would say that it was a pretty good collection but definitely could have been even better.

2. Maison Martin Margiela 

              

              

Clean, structured, well tailored clothes from M.M.M. I like the contrast between the white and the black. (There were also splashes blue and grey in the collection, but the only piece that I really liked that used one of those colors was a blue trench-coat.) Like the JPG collection, there could be more standout pieces in this once, which makes me sad because I love Maison Martin Margiela.

3. Marc by Marc Jacobs

             

             

So far, this is my favorite out of all of the Resort looks that I've seen. It has, as annoyingly overused as this phrase may sound, a youthful yet sophisticated look to it, which stays true to the general spirit of the usual Marc by Marc Jacobs collections. It's great. I really admire the use of black and white because it isn't trying to be cool, it just is. That effortless cool is what defines this collection. I like the fact that the clothes are incredibly amazing and still retain their fashion credibility while being something that you can really visualize yourself wearing.

              

              

4. Alexander Wang

              

              

YES to the dress(es) and NO to those shoes. I know that the Alexander Wang girl is about maintaining the relaxed yet interesting cool of a model walking down the street...laid back, but laid back enough that you won't hesitate to look twice. 

But those shoes.

I would not look twice.

In fact, I regret even looking once. I don't know. I have a serious aversion to Toms, anything that LOOKS like a pair of Toms, and nice outfits that are killed by the overpowering, satanic aura of Toms or Toms-like shoes. 

Alexander (first name basis, obviously), I love you. I love you so much that when I was nine and my mother got one of your bags, I stayed up all night wallowing in sadness because she refused to let me use it. (Five years later, I realize how much sense this made.)

But those SHOES. 

Okay, I'm done. Let's move on to more outfits without THOSE SHOES. (But first let's analyze these outfits while pretending that you-know-what doesn't exist. Great use of leather, good mixture of masculine and feminine; I like the message that it sends that you don't need to choose between the two. This is shown in the more obvious choices like the pink pencil skirt and  the black leather peplum shirt, and in more subtle outfits like the second picture featuring the black dress with the sharp lines.)

                 

                 

I like the fact that the third picture brings to mind high school (ignoring the Toms-like shoes, which don't look too bad with this outfit). Did anyone else get that vibe?

Basically: pleats, leather, effortlessness with structure (a fashion paradox, essentially), masculinity and femininity coexisting, youth, and leather. I like this collection.

5. Alexander McQueen  

                  

                  

I really like the clothing shapes that were chosen for this collection. They were based on what women wore during WWII while men were at war; for a good amount of the pieces, I felt as if they were also based on what one might wear one a safari in Africa, only with more taste. The major points (sorry if it seems like I'm not going into detail enough; it's getting late and I want to finish up this post for you guys before I go to sleep): pockets, structure, war/1940s' colors (brown, light blue, white), femininity evolved, belts and buckles, and prints that didn't work as well as the more simple-colored pieces. It started off well and then just ended up as dresses with prints, sort of losing the original artistic vision.

                  

                  

Well, I'm off to bed because my mother is on the other side of the room glaring at me, and because I'm tired and need to wake up early tomorrow. I didn't get to do a collection flashback which I really wanted to do in this post, but I'll make it up to you in the next one. Goodbye, lovelies! 

                                                                                     xxBritney

ghost world

So my mother and I went to Governor's Island today, and I wore this. (Please ignore my troll-like face in both pictures.) I wore this dress (possibly a shirt but SHHH, it's a dress) that I got from F21 in seventh grade, Ann Demeulemeester sandals, H&M necklace (it's hard to see it here but it's a black feather on a long, golden chain), a spiked choker and cats' eye sunglasses from eBay, and a bag from Maison Martin Margiela. My earrings, which you can't see here, were really nice and kitschy and I finally felt like wearing them. They're heart shaped (bleh) and have these faded flowers in the middle, and they remind me of how Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love used to collect and give each other heart shaped boxes, and Kurt would make art out of those boxes and fake flowers. 

BRIDGESBRIDGESBRIDGESBRIDGES.

I feel like the following song goes well with this post/my entire day/the first picture. It's one of my new favorite songs (and Violent Femmes is one of my new favorite bands-which is good, because I really need more favorite bands that are still together/whose leads aren't dead which makes it impossible for me to see them in concert). 

xxBritney

céline marries beijing

       
Hello, fellow blogger/reader/person who stumbled across this blog. The above picture is from this style.com article called "When Céline meets Beijing," and I don't know if anyone else got this vibe, or if I'm thinking this because of the photograph's lighting, but this is the first thing that came to mind when I saw this jacket:

                    

(That brown jacket is the closest shape I could find, but you understand what I mean, right?)

That by no means whatsoever means that I don't like the jacket. I do. I would probably wear it if I had a chance to. But that was my literal thought process, and still is every time I look at that jacket. I don't know why. My brain just instantly makes that connection. I can't wait to see the September issue of Harper's Bazaar and see how the rest of the shoot turns out. If I remember to then, I'll make a post about it here. 

I need to go to sleep. It's 1:47 in the morning and my wee eyes are burning because I am 99% sure that they actually belong to an 80 year old woman somewhere across the world. 

                                                                xxBritney

my body is a shrine to adolescence because adolescence equals sweat and awkwardness.

And EIGHT, EIGHT, I FORGET WHAT EIGHT WAS FOR.

Hi. I'm really happy in general because a few days ago I hung out with two of my best friends, and we saw the The Way, Way Back (so amazing). Then one of my friends and I made my other friend go up to the front of the theater and play the ukulele, which was hilarious and cool. After that, we just did a ton of things and it was probably the best day of the summer so far for me. Obviously there are other things going on, blah blah blah, getting ready for high school while trying to hold on to summer as it trickles through my fingers like sand, but it was still superb.

                                                    

(oh hi saddle shoes)

I know, I know, my room is so messy right now. I'm currently cleaning it out and replacing my dressers and bed/bedspread, hence the clutter. The shirt is from H&M, the badge is homemade/DIY, and the skirt is vintage. I wore a great pair of gold/metallic sandals with it today but I didn't have the energy to bother to put them back on for the picture.

I made this badge myself when I FINALLY figured out how to make them without gluing my fingers together before I even but the picture on. 

(CALL ME, Debbie, and you can tell me how to be cool because I am obviously failing at that right now.)

 

I got this great Heathers-quoted button from Etsy and it is one of my favorite things ever. I also ordered this collar harness from Etsy as well, and a funny-because-it's-true shirt from American Apparel, which I usually don't do because it sometimes tends to be expensive (i.e. $24 for a plain T-shirt), but I thought it would make me Leandra Medine really liked its message and agreed with it.

  
                                                       (ze aforementioned collar harness)

(Source)

(Source)

Things are great. Today Lula (who said she would punch me in the face if I took a picture of her for this here blog) and I went thrifting, and we found nothing worth buying EXCEPT for this cool wedding dress that was two or three dollars that Lula bought. It looks a lot like this one, and it even came with the veil, which Lula hung over her bedroom door. When you look through it, it makes the entire room look like Narnia/a fairy blessed it. 

There are not MAGAZINES, they're my bibles. Seriously, I bought them because I liked a few articles in each too much to leave them behind and now I am reading them religiously. (Both of them feature Grimes, so that doesn't hurt.) They're both serving as great style guides and help me process my thoughts better. They help me think of different things, because if I only rely on the Internet to help me do that then I will drown in a sea of pastel pink and soft grunge and euuuuuugh. Reading The Man Repeller and going on Hel-Looks helps, too, so I've been buying more clothes lately and am actually excited about wearing them. I've been more inspired to dress like this woman & personifying Rei Kawakubo & Yohji Yamamoto's clothes/creating characters and stories for them. I like the idea of maximalism and deconstruction together, especially since I've never been a big fan of minimalism. (My mother is the minimalist of our family, though, and she wears it well, better than I would if I tried to. She is basically the personification of Alexander Wag + Helmut Lang.)

Tomorrow I'm going to Governor's Island with my mother, and I'm not 100% what to wear because it's hard to be a suave maximalist with hints of Rei when there are swing sets and dirt and sand everywhere you turn. What is your idea of the ideal island outfit? Let me know in the comment section.

I will leave you with this GIF of Leandra Medine (made by the Man Repeller herself), and you will never regret seeing it:

xxBritney