pearls - The Seventh Sphinx

It’s getting cold here, time for the serious sweaters. This cozy Donegal wool sweater with its simple, speckled design was a great find in the men’s section of J Crew. Another fisherman’s sweater.

I love these colors. It’s rare to see a mix of grey and brown done well.

Sometimes simple clothes can provide a clean frame for a complex face, I mean a distractingly made up face, but sometimes simple clothes call for a simple face.

It’s strange the extent to which thinking about my identity is equivalent to, parallel to thinking about my face. Or not strange, rather a combination of natural, the face being how we identify one another, being the feature that evolves with us, and arbitrary, the face being one of many, many things we do not choose about ourselves. Strange that it is what everyone sees but means nothing, in a way. Serves only to identify, and it’s not so simple to pin down just what it is identifying.

9-10mm metallic freshwater pearl studs from Pearl Paradise

My own face gives me so much grief, its troublesome skin. And maybe it’s on account of eating so many sesame bagels lately but it seems especially round, like its childself. To you it looks always the same, perhaps, but to me it has so many moods. Looks so different depending on the angle. Is at times inexplicably (or perhaps totally explicably) unpleasant, ghastly, at times unexpectedly fine and radiant. Now irritates me with some quirk or asymmetry, now charms me with another. Is of endless interest to me, for good or ill.

It feels like it is mine, which I will say for it. It feels like a reflection of me…or part of me, as it can be deceptive as well. I wonder how much I am a reflection of it, rather than the other way around. Like names, faces can shape destinies.

This ultra natural look is Tarte cheek stain in Blissful (love), MAC Nude on Board ProLongwear Bronzing Powder (I really like this, LE but findable), Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector, and the teensiest lashing of mascara. This is how I look most days, with my hair in a 10 second bun, or some harried version of this.

Stay warm.

All I wanted to do yesterday was wear these red shoes. Sometimes my wants are so few.

It took so many tries before I could find the proportions I wanted for this style. The clean triangle toe, the straps of a particular width and placement. Many (many!) failures before coming across these red suede heels from Steve Madden, which love. Ankle straps get some flack for cutting the leg-lengthening effect heels otherwise have but they have the unquestionable virtue of holding the shoe securely to your foot. Not to mention making such minimal silhouettes as this possible. Anyway, I’m not convinced they negate whatever added height,* and who cares anyhow. If you like them. They’re trending now, and I approve.

*A lot of the supposed optical illusions fashion tricks are meant to conjure are suspect to me. I see what they are getting at but often doubt they are truly working. More common than seeing the illusion is seeing the trick, for me. Not that I don’t employ them when it suits me… Let’s get back to the main text.

I was in the mood for a pencil skirt and that careless, layered J Crew look took over from there.

This look is so genius, in a way, so easy to tap into, with certain elements ultra-polished and tailored and other elements strategically undone, unkempt. The hair can’t be too precise, the layers can’t be too perfectly aligned. Colorful solids with one bold and colorful pattern peeking through somewhere. Natural face with the possible exception of a red lip.

Usually their looks are a bit too fussy looking for me, with only the thinnest veneer of unfussiness or carelessness superimposed, but I like the color and pattern play and can like them as a starting point (or outright, once in a while).

I got another cap, because this hair/hat combo had to be reprised.

I am trying to make a firm reminder for myself that I should do this all the time. Leave hair down! Squash with hat!

UGH. SO GOOD.

Oh, here’s one thing you can do with black lipstick. Avon lip pencil in deep plum with the NYX Macaron lipstick in Chambord (which is just black) in the center. Basically taking the bordeaux lip to its natural extreme. I like. You like? I like.

J Crew linen sweater, thrifted plaid shirt, J Crew No. 2 pencil skirt, Steve Madden Abagail heels, Free People vegan leather tote, pearl ring from Pearl Paradise, Solange Azagury-Partridge lips ring, jasper necklace (eBay) as bracelet, Nike FC Barcelona cap.

Tag: pearls

getting cozy

that J Crew look