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)

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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

free radicals (happy birthday to me!)

   
Hey there, fellow humans. Today was my birthday! I went to the Met with my mom, and we walked through the "PUNK: Chaos to Couture" exhibit, which was everything I ever could have wanted, and more. Honestly, I loved it to death. I've been into the punk culture for a long time, but this exhibition just took my breath away. It gave me the fresh outlook on life that I have wanted.

PEOPLE UNDER NEW KNOWLEDGE.

I really liked my outfit today (credits to my mother for this picture and helping in choosing the outfit). The dress has one sleeve, which is pretty rad, and the sandals, which you can't see that well, are this really nice metallic gold that were a little futuristic, in my opinion. My bag is from Maison Martin Margiela and I use it pretty often, but it worked especially well with this outfit.

   

After we were done, we walked around the sculpture/painting section, which was really nice and great to look at. Degas's paintings (and this great sculpture that incorporated fabric in it, making it even more realistic) were one of my favorites; I never got a chance to really observe them that well, and seeing them up close and reading about the stories behind them helped me develop a better understanding of them. The same goes for the other paintings and sculptures, like Vincent Van Gogh's and Picasso's. Then we ate in Central Park, picked up my cake from the store that made it, and I went home and opened my presents, which were an acoustic guitar, a typewriter, a gift card, and an amazing homemade card. THEN WE ATE CAKE.

All in all, today was FANTASTIC, and I loved it so much. It wasn't what I thought it would be (which is good, because I thought that it was going to be incredibly depressing and a realization that I'm growing up and I can't do anything to stop it). -Britney

sacred woman

So, hi. I'm in a really good mood today even though all the world's tears are coming down on my window (why, rain? WHY?) and it's cold outside. On the train, someone next to me said that each raindrop "represents every tacky outfit that the world has ever seen." I got to go to Capezio for the first time today and silently sob at how beautiful all of the dancewear/shoes were. I touched pointe shoes for the first time and spent about half an hour just staring at them until one of the workers gave me a really strange look. Anyway. Back to the present. 

This post is really exciting to write, and I'm going to take advantage of that and make it as long as it needs to be because filters are for Instagram (HAHAHA SEE WHAT I DID THERE? No? Okay.)  and I am tired of feeling like I cannot say what I want to say. So, yes, BEHOLD the magic that exists in a small corner of my brain where I keep quotes from Heathers. 

Every once in a while, there comes along a mystical woman in my life whose presence I cannot explain. It doesn't matter whether or not she's famous or not. I may never speak to her, or really know her. It could be a picture in a subway or a girl at school or a character in a movie, but nevertheless, she is there, and I cannot deny her being there; it is like she has her very own atmosphere, her very own axis on which she spins, ignoring whatever anyone else says. She is not a manic pixie dream girl, because manic pixie dream girls are ideals. No, she is self aware and refuses to be held down by any romanticists who happen to slip into her orbit. She is a gold dust woman. She is not Cleopatra, not Helen of Troy, not Holly Golightly. She is not yours; you cannot have her, not now, not ever. She is in all of our lives; that is the one thing about her that we are sure of. 

She does not seek attention; she does not try to be quirky or anything like that, really. In fact, she may even blend in. But there is one person who sees her as more than that. 

Moodboard that I made about the mysterious/interesting/different aspects that can make up a person and how we perceive them

There will finally (finally!) be an outfit post tomorrow. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? CAN YOU HANDLE THIS EXCITEMENT? NO? Okay. 

                                                              Yours truly, Britney

universal appeal (happy birthday, the style aviator!)

                             

(Source unknown)

Hey, guys and dolls. I am not going to dwell on the fact that I haven't been blogging as much as I would like to. Instead, I'm going to celebrate the BIRTHDAY of this here blog! (This was supposed to be posted a week ago, but...stuff. I don't know.) One year ago I decided to spill all of my mind's thoughts and ideas and opinions onto this page, and along the way, gained so much. I've made new friends, gotten chances to share my view more, and was just able to have an outlet where I didn't have to worry about being judged. I want to take the time to say that I will definitely be blogging more, because haven't been doing that as much as I have wanted to. So...yes. Thank you for everything, and visiting this blog and putting up with my eternal laziness. I love you guys. -Britney

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"pastel grunge" makes me sad/i'm picking up good vibrations

   

A GIF that I made of one of my wicker baskets

Hi hi hi hi hi. I'm off from school for Memorial Day, so I have time to browse the Internet and criticize everything and be snarky while eating pretzels and listening to Bikini Kill. 

So...yeah. I'm not going to rant about everything because ranting gets boring after a while and I have pretzels waiting to enter my mouth, but I've noticed something called "pastel grunge" lately. It's basically what would happen if a kawaii monster ate all the cats and lolita-based posts on tumblr and traveled back in time to a Nirvana concert to vomit the mixture all over the place, then took an Instagram picture of it to make it look "retro" or whatever. In an article in the Toronto Standard, Max Mosher says, "Picture a combination of Courtney Love and My Little Pony, and you're most of the way there."

There's just something about it that irks me. I honestly don't know. Maybe it started when I saw someone wearing a shirt with the Nirvana logo with a bunch of kawaii necklaces, and when I asked if she liked Nirvana, she said, "Um, who?" Or maybe it was when I saw someone for the hundredth time with fluorescent hair and some sort of skull somewhere on their outfit. I don't know. 

I'm not trying to offend anyone, so if you read this and said, "UGH, so offensive! You suck!" then I apologize. I'm probably contradicting myself because I've had purple hair twice in my lifetime, but I guess my only annoyance comes out of either seeing the same thing every day, or when people wear things of significance to other people without trying to find out the real meaning. I don't know. I have the same problem with Nu Goth (a.k.a. 75% of Lookbook a.k.a what this blogger describes as an "unholy alliance") for the same reasons. 

If you haven't stopped reading by now, then good, good. I'm in a weird good mood, both because of the fact that I have no school today, and because the Internet has given me a reason to like it again. Behold, the Holy Grail of fashion/snarkiness:

 

I spent my entire Sunday going through twenty six pages worth of this stuff from a tumblr called Unknowledgeable Fashionista, which has both memes and screenshots of when people get names and terms in fashion wrong, etc., including the forever cringeworthy "Channel." (seen below)

Anyway. In relation to what I was talking about before (grunge), there is a great article that I read on style.com called "Baby-Doll Dresses Rise to the Occasion"  that talks about the revival of the 1990s and the kinderwhore fashion. 

                 

Above: Hedi Slimane's revival at Saint Laurent (left), Christoper Kane's (right)

Azzedine Alaïa's, which was superb. I'm in a dot coma. 

Anna Sui 

Chanel

Versus Versace 

I have an exciting blogiversary post up later (I know, I know, it's been two days, don't judge me), so...woohoo. I'm bad at ending posts. I'm actually supposed to be editing an article right now, so I should stop procrastinating for once. 

-Britney 

household saint

Well, HI.
Everything has been weird lately, and a heat wave is bearing down on New York. I haven't been able to wear stockings in about a week, which is a big thing for me, because stockings are my life. They are essentially, a SECOND SKIN for me. 

I don't really have too much to say right now. I just thought I'd share a few pictures that I took around my apartment. In the outfit picture, my jean jacket is from Macy's (I bought it last summer), the Frida Kahlo shirt is from F21, and the skirt is from H&M. The necklace is homemade and I like to think that a cult like The Source Family used it as a healing crystal and that one day Joan Baez will crawl out of it, dust of her guitar, and serenade me. 

-Britney

mad girl's love song

                    

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(Source unknown-it might be tumblr)

Hey there. I don't have much to post; this is basically a hodgepodge of different things that have been a part of my life lately/some inspiration. 

                                                                                           -Yours truly, Britney 

P.S. Sonic Youth is undoubtedly amazing, which is something that I only realized yesterday.

endless, nameless

It is Friday, April 5, the day that Kurt Cobain put a gun to his head nineteen years ago and decided to pull. It is Friday, April 5, and death surrounds me.

I am on a bus on the way to school, listening to Nirvana’s In Utero on my cassette player (as a sort of tribute to Kurt) and staring up at the grey-coated sky through the window, which is stained with patches of moisture from the light rain. One of the characters in the book that I’m almost done reading is having a prefuneral-he is dying of cancer, and wants to attend his own funeral, so he gets his girlfriend and best friend together and listens to their eulogies devoted to him. A small part of me finds this narcissistic, but as I think about it, the entire concept of viewing life after death and the world existing without someone is too much to handle.

There is a specific sadness associated with death. It’s intertwined with a fear of oblivion and knowing that something inexorable exists, no matter how much we don’t want it to. Both living forever and dying are horrible in their own ways; there is no complete solution, which makes it worse.

A while ago, I experienced the worst form of dejection that I have ever known. It was a time when I feared death yet never stop thinking about it. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want anyone around me to die.  While my other friends who battled with depression sought solace in suicide attempts and thoughts of ending their lives, I could only live, which I found hard to do when thinking about the future. It lasted for a few years, going on and off until I met with my school’s guidance counselor about it. It stopped after that, and now, for a few moments, it reappears. I cannot help it; I cry. I cry for Kurt. I cry for the character having the prefuneral and everyone who will have to eventually wake up in a world without him. I cry for the fourteen dead people that exist for each one of the living. I cry for the living as well, for having to know that this thing called death exists.

“Look on the bright side, suicide…” I cry even more, thinking about how Kurt Cobain must have felt in those final moments. Did he think about how that final second on Earth would feel? Did he think about what would be waiting for him once the gunshot penetrated his brain?

The book that I was reading talked about leaving behind a legacy. When we die, who remembers us? When they die, too, are we lost, our ashes claimed by wind and blown away from existence? Did Kurt wonder if almost two decades after he died, people would listen to his music and cry? I can only wonder, like I do with everything else, as I step off the bus and into the rain.

                                                         

age of consent (spring vibes '13)

HI. I'm currently up late finishing up some entries in my creative writing for school while trying to juggle my feelings of extreme happiness and excitement (writing this post, gathering up all of my emotions and ideas and thoughts to put here) while dealing with some sadness: this post, as well as this Rookie diary that I wrote for the week. There's just this big blob of adolescence (which I'll touch on more a bit later) and death and nostalgia surrounding me, and I'm not sure of how to escape it.

 

A moodboard that I made. I feel like a lot of spring moodboards are full of brightness and Technicolor (even though winter to spring really is like running from a tornado and into a land full of Munchkins) and other things. I think that's how I felt before in winter, but now I feel more forest inspired than say, a meadow or a pool like before (while those both play roles in my overall perspective, they aren't the central themes). Ghost World, Freaks and Geeks, and The Virgin Suicides are a big part of that (suburbia and the '70s, because you have to admit, F&G is stuck in the era of the shag rug (Exhibit A: Lindsey & Sam's house, which is green & brown). There is also ADOLESCENCE as a whole, because it obviously isn't absolutely amazing and puppies and sunshine, although puppies would make sense because they poop a lot. Adolescence poops a lot, which is something that I think we can all agree on.

CDG ad that I edited/annotated 

(Source-Odyssey and Oracle)

Two pages from  one of my journals. The left page stemmed from the bottom section that I started writing on the right ("Diaries"). (ALSO-My normal handwriting doesn't look like this. I just felt the need to clarify this.) I started thinking about The Virgin Suicides, but really thinking about it-every time I read it, I feel connected to it more, in a way. The first time I read it, I don't think I really saw it for what it was; like with what many people do with Lolita, I romanticized a tale of obsession, one that made the subject(s) of desire out to be otherworldly creatures. Upon reading it again, I realized that it was really about a group of men who refuse to let go of an obsession with the group of girls across the street. This time around, I really got involved in the adolescence aspect of it, which is something I've been doing lately whenever I read literature, watch a television show or a movie, listen to a song, etc. J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is the epitome of teenage rebellion, but not really rebelling in the way that we are used to, like steal our parents' liquor and getting drunk in the basement, or hating everyone and everything just for the hell of it. Holden Caulfield, the main character, rebels because he (a) dislikes many people based on the fact that he views them as "goddamn phonies" and (b) holds onto youth in a way that isn't sexualized like Humbert Humbert's, but because it's so full of innocence and the mind in it's supposedly purest form, before humans make the transition into becoming possible phonies. My spring vibes (sort of based on my playlist for the season, "Age of Consent") are centered around this idea of what adolescence is, and how there are so many different perspectives on it. In an interview Rookie conducted with Sky Ferreira, she spoke about how so many pop stars are sexualized in a Lolita-esque, schoolgirl way, even though adolescence is this really difficult time full of zits and awkwardness, which is so right; people like to have this fantasy of what growing up is, when really, it is just this ideal that hardly compares to the real thing.

I'm going to post the rest of this later, because I have so much to say (including a playlist focused around this theme, more moodboards, more talking), but my computer hates me.

                                                                                                                 Yours truly,
                                                                                                                          Britney

(Originally posted on The Fashion Aviator, my other blog)