Links of the Whatever – November 29, 2020
Life updates
These two clips summarize how it's been going generally:
Closet clean out
While I haven't been successful in slowing down my purchases because it's 2020 and there has been literally nothing to look forward to besides delivery notifications, I'm attempting to reach some kind of equilibrium by selling some of my less-worn items on Poshmark. Taking this opportunity to plug that, so if you're in the size US 6 - US 10 range there are sweaters, midi skirts, dresses, outerwear, etc and all are things that I sincerely felt were nice enough to be worth the effort of listing for a chance at a new owner. Check it out at https://poshmark.com/closet/mgetsdressed. I also post items in various sizes similar or exactly the same as things I have in the shares page on Poshmark as I come across them.
Links
Here's the usual stuff for the links of the whatever:
Moschino marionettes
Since 2020 has put a damper on live runway shows, designers have had to get creative, with some being more extra about it than others. Moschino commissioned an entire puppet show to show off the Spring/Summer designs, and it was just absolutely delightful and detailed.
"How I shop" series on Fashionista
https://fashionista.com/tag/how-i-shop
fashionista.com has a series where they interview minor celebrities or fashion professionals about their shopping habits, preferences, and strategies as well as their relationships with fashion in general. The quality of the interviews varies a lot, but I've found the ones featuring older people and/or fashion industry professionals vs random C-list celebs and teens to be better reading.
Book review – Disneybound: Dress Disney and make it fashion, by Leslie Kay
I got this book after reading reviews and fully expected not to be impressed by it, but I wanted to check it out for myself (and support disneybound, because even though I wouldn't like to wear most of the outfit sets they post, I still think they're great examples of translating an aesthetic from one medium into another and I think she's done really well keeping up with the Instagram community).
I would recommend this for preteens/teens or anyone who hasn't gotten into outfit styling and is specifically into the aesthetic of the disneybound blog. If they are interested in disneybounding but have a very different style, I don't think this will be a great resource, as it only shows one example for each character it covers and it's all very classic disneybound (and despite being published this year, not particularly on-trend IMO if that's important to you). The examples would have been vastly more helpful if they had covered fewer characters, but shown multiple outfits in contrasting styles, e.g. winter/summer, masculine/feminine, dressy/casual, 1990s/1950s, streetwear/preppy etc.
Good stuff: It does go over the general steps of breaking down a character look, and a section that recommends generally helpful articles of clothing that they've noticed show up more frequently in disney looks, such as yellow shoes and brown boots. But even then, I think those brief explanations would have been a lot more helpful accompanied with better example outfits, because fashion is visual and in my experience most people don't really grok walls of text about it very well. I also appreciated the diversity of the featured bloggers and the overall really encouraging tone in the book.
Book review – About Time: Fashion & Duration, The Met Costume Institute
https://store.metmuseum.org/about-time-fashion-duration-80051222
I really enjoyed previous books on fashion exhibitions at The Met – they're the gold standard, after all. I loved the concept of this exhibition as well as the teaser trailers they had for it and pre-ordered (so before there were any reviews). Unfortunately this wasn't a book for me, mainly because I hated the formatting.
Fashion books like these are usually huge hardcover beasts, and thus are $$$, so I either like ones that have essays and/or fairly meaty captions that I find myself wanting to revisit. For purely photographic inspiration, there's so much stuff available online that I don't want to waste any space on my shelves for content that I could also just find in online. Alas, with this book, they opted to feature single images on each page, and they crammed all the captions into the back! You have to keep flipping the thing back and forth while reading which is super annoying, especially for such a small volume of text. Even if you just want to compare the paired artifacts, they're almost always on different spreads, so you still have to keep flipping.
I would generally not recommend this book especially given the price and size of it. If you're interested in seeing photos of the exhibition, there are plenty online and with more written about them.
Style Blogger Index
My instagram friend @timorous.me has spent the last few months bringing up The Style Blogger Index, which is basically a list of style bloggers searchable by their measurements. This is a fantastic resource for finding other fashion fans in a similar size to you, or just diversifying your feed.
Who's a "blogger"? Anyone who posts regular outfit of the day content, either on Instagram or to a standalone blog or anywhere else. One thing I like about it is that a lot of the accounts aren't professional influencer accounts, but more like outfit diaries, so the inspo is likely to feel more accessible. It's easy to sign up, you just need a link to your insta/blog and basic measurements like your height and bust/waist/hips, though there are options to add in more stats.
Check it out at https://themedian.moda/style-blogger-index/ ! Please note that this is a labor of love worked on in her spare time, and it's basically a google form with a webapp around it. It's also pretty new and therefore not all demographics are equally filled out, and last I checked it was <1000 entries but growing, and I'm looking forward to see where it goes. On the other hand if you have suggestions or bug reports, since it's a personal project and not a business motivated by increasing the value for shareholders, you'll more likely get an actual response.
libro.fm
WE MADE IT FAM, I got an audiobook distributor sponsorship! Well. It's not Audible, and it's not really a sponsorship, BUT if you listen to audiobooks or are interested in taking that up, I'd like to bring your attention to libro.fm as an option to help stave off a Black Mirror future where we're all owned by Amazon.
Over the last several weeks, I've added audiobooks into the usual mix of podcasts and Youtube videos that I listen to while crocheting or cleaning. I've been doing that via libro.fm and have generally been really happy with it.
- You can purchase audiobooks on their website (a la carte or from a subscription, which gives you a discount) and listen to them on the libro.fm mobile app (iOS and Android).
- A portion of the proceeds will go to a brick and mortar independent bookstore of your choice (I'm supporting Pegasus Books in Berkeley)
- How much of a proportion? They don't advertise it anywhere on the website or in any recent news pieces on them, but I emailed their customer support and they said currently "Our local bookstore partners get 10% of the membership and 15% of your a la carte purchases." It doesn't cost the stores anything to join either as far as I could tell (this was indicated in several older articles).
- The books are DRM-free. You actually own them once you've purchased them! This is not the case with Audible.
You can read more about their offerings here.
If you're interested in trying it out, you can sign up with my referral link here at no additional cost to you, and we'll each get a credit for an audiobook.
I've listened to a few Bill Bryson books which are always solid but at this point I've decided too rambling for my tastes, but I'm currently finishing up Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, which is excellent. If you enjoy a good taxonomy of everyday modern life and going down rabbit holes on questions like "what are the different use categories for emoji" or tracking the history of punctuation use indicating passive-aggressiveness in online messaging, then this is for you. It's very general audience friendly with a lightly humorous voice. The most impressive part to me is how effectively the author translated a book that talks a lot about visual things like text ornamentation or the degree of genuine-keyboard-smashiness of various random strings into an audiobook, and honestly worth listening to just to hear keyboard smashes and ~*~~sparkle tildes*~** in audio form 😂
They haven't got a huge selection of books on fashion, I think partly because there just aren't a ton in non-fiction mostly-text chapter book form, but some generally well-reviewed titles in this category are
- Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, by Dana Thomas (what you'd expect based on the title – the environmental and humanitarian impact of fast fashion and what the industry is doing now to try and claw its way away from that)
- Deluxe: How luxury lost its luster, by Dana Thomas (a history of the rise and fall of luxury fashion – I've actually read this one and while I think now it's 10+ years out of date, it was a great deep dive on the history)
- Overdressed: The shockingly high cost of cheap fashion, by Elizabeth Cline
- Project 333: The minimalist fashion challenge that proves less is really so much more, by Courtney Carver. This is probably the most in line with my blog content. As regular readers know, I never blanket recommend a hardcore minimalist wardrobe (either in style or in number of items) as what makes the most sense for anyone is going to vary dramatically based on their lifestyle and personal style, but like The Curated Closet book or the 10x10 challenges, the concept discussed here is one of the OG classic wardrobe curation exercises from the time before they were all over fashiongram.
I learned about libro.fm's existance when one of their reps reached out to me on Instagram about their Influencer program. If you are approved, they'll provide a few pre-selected free audiobooks each month with no strings attached, although obviously it would be great if you tagged them and the book authors anytime I post about them. Tbh I actually haven't downloaded any of their free offerings because none of them were my thing, but I still felt sharing an alternative to Audible was still worth a link. You can learn more about their influencer ALC program here.
Upcoming mgetsdressed posts
- Fashion inspiration: Bill Gibbs
- Style analysis #2 – I'm taking a different strategy with these and timeboxing myself to 30 minutes for the first draft of the text (and assuming adding photos and editing will take another 1-2 hours), in the hopes that getting just high-impact notes in will be better reading and mean that I'll actually get publishing these regularly. I'm hoping to move the blog more towards this category of post combined with one-off Style Notes posts rather than the monthly "what I bought" posts because I think in theory these could be less taxing to write, and have more long-term value for readers. Once it's clear I can actually get through the submissions regularly I'll open up the form again.
- Apartment Life: Decor + Usability Improvements (the previous post was about resources, this will be about specific things I've done for my place. Don't expect anything pin-worthy.)
- Style analysis #3
- Fashion inspiration: Steampunk
And that's all for now. Have you read any interesting style content recently?