EDITOR'S LETTER: February 2014

Overalls - Normally associated with our youthful prepubescence (or mechanics), are a piece of clothing I purchased recently to play with the idea of revamping such an article of clothing to more chic standards. 

In my fashion, Vogue has really started the year with a bang in regards to their fashion reportage. Talk about BEING STIMULATED, I have been very impressed with their January and February issues. Not only are the covers for the two issues powerfully captivating, sleek, and unforgettable, I have to say that the content included in each issue has me geared for a new modern frontier going forward with 2014. I find that the fashion stories are new, fresh, and innovative, ushering us into a the sleek modernity of 2014. We all know that this is the month of the Spring Collections, so I am most excited for what the March issue will incorporate, but this month I plan on getting back to my READing Your Style: Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible posts which I started back in August 2013 which will highlight some more of my favorite examples from Vogue of the pieces of clothing Tim Gunn educates us of in his book. In my fashion, my Tim Gunn posts are my brilliant way of marrying the past with the present, with Vogue showing how far fashion has come, and  using Tim Gunn’s insights to educate us all.

I worn them out on a night on the town (image), as a casual look (above), and I even wore them to work with a blazer and a dress shirt, and looked very dashing, succeeding in bringing a laughable nostalgia to my co-workers for the day. As Iris Apfel has said, "Wit and humor are life."

Being that this is second busiest time of the year for fashion, February will be chalked full of content on #IMFblog as well. It’s funny how February is the shortest month of the year, and I plan on having maybe the most content of the year for a month in this brief amount of time. In light of these two month’s theme being “BE STIMULATED”, I have been working hard to bring plenty stimulation for our sartorial journey. Between “5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl”, “Beauty At Any Age”, and “Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible”, I hope the content I post this month gets your mind jogging with oodles of inspiration as we go into a new season. As I mentioned in my intro to READing Your Style: 5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl, it can be hard trying to stay motivated to maintain one’s sartorial elegance day in and day out, so my hopes through #IMFblog is to recharge you day in and day out to keep us on track. In my fashion, fashion as a whole is on a new plane. With an emphasis on individualism, the consensus seems to be that clothing choices shall be less about Lady Gaga-esque glitz, and more about a controlled and focused sensibility aimed at classicism and timelessness, sorta like in the decades of the 30's and 40's. The 2014 Grammy Awards, in my fashion, was evidence of this notion in that one usually expects stars, especially musicians, to showcase their most daring, provocative, and dare I say, avant-garde looks on the Grammy red carpet, but it seems to me that with each passing year, Grammy looks seem to become more and more subdued with celebrities appearing to be more modest, and less arrogantly egocentric - perhaps avant-garde in more a sensible, practical sense. Maybe the egocentric attitude is there, but I find the attitude to be more casual, cool, and witty, as opposed to overtly obvious and subversive. It would seem that on a sartorial aspect, in regards to standing out and being above the rest, we are choosing to work smarter, not harder about being sartorially creative. Hopefully my posts this month will help you to do just that this year. Remember, beauty lies not in sameness but in difference.