reading: favorite style blogs

Here are some of my favorite fashion and style blogs to follow (I like to use feedly), some of which are relatively new to me, and some of which I’ve been reading for many years.

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 feedly, so useful

1. Karla’s Closet

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Jewelry designer Karla Deras has a distinctive style I fully appreciate. I admire a lot of the svelte silhouettes she favors and, while her taste isn’t always aligned with mine, I love her style, especially her use of color (which often manages to be somehow both bold and restrained) and preference for clean lines. I also like her incorporation of recipes and moodboards, and the aesthetic of her site was one of my primary inspirations when I was designing mine.

2. Garance Doré

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A wonderful fashion blog by the French illustrator Garance Doré, which it is very likely you know about already. The other dominant influence of my design/layout, this blog has really exploded in popularity in the last few years (in tandem with the fashion industry itself), and understandably so with its beautifully photographed blend of frippery and reflection. She draws from all areas of her life to create content, one of the main things I find to admire in her site, and the one I most hope to emulate.

3. because i’m addicted

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A tremendous source of cool photos, mostly but not all fashion-centric. Technically I don’t read this blog so much as just look through it.

4. Shine By Three

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This is a style blog I’ve only recently begun to follow but it’s quickly become a favorite. Margaret Zhang is gorgeous, for one, and does stunning editorial shoots that are, basically, exactly the kind of thing I want to be doing. One of the kinds of things. She kind of rambles, too, which I like.

5. Dulceida

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A style blogger from Barcelona who often does music and video collaborations, and blogs in both Spanish and English. I’m not a faithful reader exactly, and I’m not necessarily really into her looks…but she’s so charming to me. I like how she does things, her enthusiasm (she starts most posts with ¡Hola preciosos!), and once in a while she’ll do a look that I find pitch perfect.

6. The Sartorialist

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Well, obviously. One of the first and now one of the most widely followed street style blogs, with shots from all over the world by photographer Scott Schuman, boyfriend of Garance Doré above. There’s always something of interest in the clothes (I especially like that he features men and women of all ages, and often on bicycles), and once in a while there is a photo that makes a deep impression on me…I keep checking in on this site so as not to miss those.

7. Nadia Aboulhosn

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GeekOutsider recently directed me to this blog, featured on buzzfeed a bit ago, and it was an instant winner. She’s doing some amazing editorial stuff as well as wonderfully bold, often edgy street stuff. I like that her style is (like mine) all over the place. It’s one of those style blogs that inspires you to do what you want, and makes you realize that if you were wearing what you really wanted to wear, things would be much, much, weirder, and much, much better.

There are others I like, of course, but these are the ones I follow with regularity at the moment. I’ll have to list favorite beauty blogs another time. Any favorites of your own you’d recommend?

images are from (and link to) relevant sites

the ascot

It’s a shame how rare it is to see an ascot these days.  Rarer still than seeing a bowtie. Such an elegant way to add a bit of color or interest to a plain shirt or outfit, for men and women alike, with an endearing element of eccentricity. It creates the sense of an additional layer that is really only the illusion of a layer.

Any light scarf can be made serve the purpose.

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This would have been better if I’d worn a shirt that buttoned up farther, maybe. More color this way but there’s something appealing about a small triangle of color peeping out, too. The loose, casual interpretation vs the severe, polished interpretation.  Both have their strengths.

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Silk is a nice way to go. 

The most enjoyable part of wearing a shirt or vest with buttons is the art of leaving certain of them undone. I like the idea of this look with no ascot, nothing at all at the neck, and another button on the shirt undone. Love the looks I’m seeing across runway shows recently (to say nothing of American Hustle, long may it be an inspiration to us all) of extremely deep Vs (front and back). I have many personal aspirations re: the deep V. The smaller breasted of us can wear it relatively innocently, I think. Relatively… It still makes for a potentially distracting eyepath, but one that is much more suggestive than it is revealing.

So much more appealing to me to create the impression of revealing than to literally reveal, which is like explaining the joke.

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Vintage silk scarf from Jones New York, H&M vest, Banana Republic shirt (thrifted), Express jean leggings, Mulberry bag, Trotters loafers. Sunglasses: cheap (retro, no?). On the lips: Shiseido Lacquer Gloss in RS 306.

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I never get it when people with broad shoulders want to disguise them. Shoulders love to be accentuated. They seem to jump at the chance.

But maybe it’s just me, and some lingering 80s influence.

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