Kadeem Johnson, Power Thrifter

Yesterday I kicked it with style blogger KADEEM JOHNSON of KJOHNLASOUL.COM.  I'm an avid reader of men's style blogs in general, but Kadeem's is definitely one of my fav's out right now. His aesthetic is tattered grunge meets alternative prep, meets...70's funk? Something like that. He refers to his own style as "grunge Africana"...which is totally awesome.

We spent the afternoon...and the evening...doing one of my favorite pastimes and apparently one of his too: thrifting. I ended up spending way more money than I intended to (but if Kadeem tells you something looks great you can't walk away from it!), and Kadeem got a crazy badass brown leather motorcycle jacket.

YOU MUST keep an eye on his blog, if for no other reason than to catch a glipse of his new jacket...and maybe some of his many glorious tattoos.

Blog: kjohnlasoul.com

Tumblr: kjohnlasoul.tumblr.com

Twitter: twitter.com/kjohn_lasoul

a girl in menswear: agyness deyn, model

Agyness Deyn is one of my absolute favorite models. Her look is so completely unconventional for high fashion, and her personal style is effortless. It's tomboy meets British punk meets 90's grunge. But what this girl does better than anything else...she pulls off a mean menswear look:

Blazers and caps and collared shirts, oh my. Gotta give a girl 3 snaps for dressing so well like a boy...

Pajama Jeans

Sigh. Apparently this exists...

ying yang twins

Meet my dear friend Lizzy. I don't have that many buddies whose sense of style continually puts me in check - but this girl takes it to a whole new level - and for that, I had to have her on the blog. Also, now that my hair is back to platinum we're looking eerily similar and that had to be captured before Lizzy jumps ship and goes back to brown.

 

me in menswear...and a lacey bra...

Last night I went to NYC lingerie store LA PETITE COQUETTE for cocktails and hobnobbing. Most of the time I don't even wear a bra, but I thought - hey, why not go rub against lots of satin stuff and chat with some bloggers?!

The lace on me was pretty amusing considering I was dressed like a fella.

Full story at Huffington Post HERE.

a girl in menswear: ashley olsen in a jacket

I love a girl in menswear...

I specifically love a girl in a great jacket. Who rocks the jackets like no other celeb? One of my favorites and yours, Ashley Olsen. Tuxedo jackets, blazers, super over-sized blazers (my FAV)...she dresses them up, she dresses them down...her collection is perfectly well rounded.

Jackets I'm currently lusting over?

historically speaking...

A day at the American Museum of Natural History with my buddies Amaris, Jamel, and a bunch of cute little kiddies. Amaris and I were feeling posey, so we ditched the kids and recruited Jamel (check his photog website HERE) to capture the moment with the animals...

Rog Walker and Me

Yesterday I met up with the dopest photog out right now. His photos are ridiculously multidimensional - he gets color and character and grit and time in a way that I've never seen before. A true artist in every sense of the word...get ready, we're working on something big. Visit his blog HERE and his website HERE to check out some of his work.

Oh and he also took some pics of lil ol' me...

You'll just have to ignore the fact that he took these the same days I took my hair pic below - hence the same outfit. Sigh, I know, shameful.

blonde on blonde

So done with the red hair. There I was, going along loving it, when suddenly I'm like uh, I look like Bozo the clown in eyeliner. So I'm back to blonde.

And to celebrate the hair, along with the over-the-top amount of Bob Dylan I've been listening to, here's one of his videos from the Blonde on Blonde album - "Just Like a Woman."

The Necessity of Scarves: We Are Owls

It's winter. How do you plan on arming yourself? Puffy coat, Uggs and a matching scarf and hat? Oh dear God please no. Luckily the innovative young women over at We Are Owls have decided to throw you a bone, rendering your excuses for an undecorated neck worthless.

In a quest to redefine the way we look at neckware, creators Connie Lui, Ling Chen and Emily Chen maintain that the scarf "should not just function as a piece to keep you warm but should also make a statement, like the perfect jewelry or bag that makes the outfit, it completes the look."

Mihal Freinquel: Why the Owl?
Connie Lui: We've always been fascinated by the beauty and mysterious qualities of the Owl. We relate ourselves to them as they are creatures of the night. The three of us have day jobs and we find ourselves gathering after work at night to have dinner and work on creative projects together. We find ourselves inspired by the night.

MF: The scarves are so intricate, both in design and quality. How are they produced?
CL: The production process is quite meticulous and tedious, as we want to ensure we produce a product we are satisfied with and our customers are satisfied with. That means the colors come out the way we envisioned and the quality is at its highest. We do sampling several times each season, visit the factories and test out the quality of the contents. Each scarf is hand printed by skilled craftsman in inner-Mongolia, China.

MF: The first scarf you ever made, what did it look like?
CL: This is quite a funny question because no one has asked us before. At some point many years ago, we got into knitting (as amateurs). We bought some yarn from the store and we all knit our very own basic knit and purl scarf.
 
MF: What was your inspiration for the F/W 2010 collection?
CL: Our concept was to explore the contrast and marriage between fear and beauty.
The mood is a touch of romance and a mix of haunting mystery. At the time, we were reading alot of dark gothic novels, especially the writings of Poe and  Carmilla, by Le Fanu. This collection features delicate florals, intricate scripts, bold animal prints and seductive lace.

The Ivory Poem Scarf is my favorite in the We Are Owls arsenal (seen below). It's a luxuriously soft ivory scarf with the following poem written in black script: "A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he saw the less he spoke. The less he spoke the more he heard. Why can’t we all be like this wise old bird?"

For more from We Are Owls, visit their website HERE (preview their SS2011 collection HERE). 
 
Happy shopping.

buenos aires installment 3 - collecting data

Ok I know I've imaged you to death - so now I think it's time to put together some words. I'm aware that blog "readers" aren't much for word-reading, so I've tried to sectionize my jibber jabber to make it as easy as possible. For those of you with total blog ADD, I've bolded the most important parts. Below is some data I collected while in the magical city of Buenos Aires.

FOOD/DRINK:
~ They don't drink their coffee iced, even in 95 degree summer heat. In an attempt to find a cold caffeinated refreshment (and be an obnoxious tourist), I patronized a Starbucks around the corner from the casa. When I ordered a grande iced coffee with a little bit of cream I received a 12 oz cup filled half way with cold coffee (no ice) and the rest of the way with whipped cream.
~ Kids drink Pepsi the way kids drink apple juice in the States...a lot.
~ Arugula is considered a pizza topping - as it should be.

STYLE/BEAUTY:
~ The guys have gloriously long hair and so do the girls...they all look like hair-flippers in dubbed Pantene commercials. I have short weird hair and did not fit in at all, and not in a cool way.
~ I'm pretty sure cellulite doesn't exist as a thing that people have - just like a standard cup of iced coffee with cream.
~ Girls and women of all ages are obsessed with hair removal, and many many conversations revolve around it. Shavers are shunned, waxing is the norm, and laser removal is optimal.
~ Their word for high heels is the same as the Mexican crunchy delights we all love: Tacos.
~ Everybody's style seems to be stuck about 5 years behind NYC's, with 2 exceptions: a few hot girls in their 20's are appropriately riding the 1990's wave, and pretty much all men over 65 who are totally killing the 1940's-style menswear game (I didn't take photos of either...I suck at approaching strangers for pics).
~ $25 is considered a lot for a big metal and leather necklace - needless to say I indulged.

CULTURE:
~ Anybody in any kind of "pop culture" circle knows all of the English lyrics to every popular song...ever...all of them.
~ People read while walking, and they're really good at it. 
~ If Buenos Aires is the Paris of Latin America, and Berlin is the new Paris of Europe, is Buenos Aires the new Berlin? And if Berlin is what New York City was in the 70's, is Buenos Aires the old New York City? ...huh?
~ Folks in their teens and twenties have their own formed opinions about global politics...and they discuss them with fervor.
~ Their nickname game is insane...unsurpassed.
~ There's a very fine line - if any line at all - between a tortured Argentine/Parisian artist and an angsty teenage Nirvana fan.
~ Bookstores. Bookstores bookstores bookstores bookstores.

And I'll leave you with this, even though it has nothing to do with the rest of the post. I made my little teenage cousin pose like a blogger (with a little help from Ray Ban). If you read "outfit blogs" you've no doubt seen these poses time and time again:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

buenos aires installment 2 - zoom out

I know...we take one vacation and we all think we're Annie Leibovitz. Whatever. Here are some more photos of Buenos Aires - some even including yours truly. More art, but mostly historical places and nature. And yes, I wore pretty much the same thing every day.

 

Click below for more!

buenos aires installment 1 - close up

Back from Buenos Aires - an extraordinary experience to say the least. To properly break down the trip for you I've decided to do it in installments - this one focuses on moments that deserved a closer look. Most of them revolve around art or food, totally unintentional, but I suppose totally appropriate considering...well, me :)

 

Click below for more!