à la mode: Buffalo Girls

After reading Diana Vreeland’s biography by Eleanor Dwight, I realize what  an  influence  Ms.  “Dee-AHN-a” had on the fashion industry. She is a fantastic example of making (smart) decisions when it came to one’s dress, and the impact one’s dress has on others. Her son was quoted saying, “She makes you see and feel and smell what she is talking about,” which, in my fashion, is quite endearing of a person to express themselves in such a way.

For me, the joy of creating my own looks for myself comes from the fact that the best way for me to remember the things that happen in my life is through associations I form through what I was wearing at the time. When I dress a certain way for a certain event or day of my life, even though I may not be able to recall exactly what I had on, those feelings I had wearing those clothes are attached to that garment in some way. It’s like a way for me to chronicle my life for myself, so to speak. Displaying a certain flow to the story of my life keeps me inspired to live my day to the fullest, everyday, as to keep the story of my life soaring high. I am intent on making the most of myself in this life, and one must always look nice for destiny, correct?  Another quote that keeps ringing in my head that comes from Diana Vreeland’s biography is her philosophy that, “Fashion is theater,” and that she used this philosophy to live a fulfilling life day in and day out. Her credo: “Don’t just be your ordinary dull self. Why Don’t You be ingenious and make yourself into something else?”

The thrift is a great time-portal of insipration...

...a great place to take what you find and turn them into a work of your own, just as Diana Vreeland suggests above.

On that note, ‘tis the season to be (animated)! For instance, thinking about this coming fall and winter, I would say a good inspirational point of reference for our clothing decisions would be in choosing our favorite characters from our childhood Saturday morning cartoons and wear exactly what they wear!

As if jeans weren't already being exploited via ultra luminescent colors this past season, this month's August “denim” issue of Teen Vogue implies that  printed jean will be a good idea to consider when one thinks to participate in this ("new normal") trend that is in line with this (falls collections).

When I looked at the spread "Buffalo Girls" I immediately thought of how much fun it would be to go to the thrift store and find a way to make each one of these looks. This spread was actually inspired by the favored aesthetics of a late stylist by the name of, Ray Petri, who was on the pulse of 80’s British street fashion, “Buffalo Boys” being the Caribbean term for a rough street attitude. Editor-in-Chief, Amy Astly praises Petri for taking “the stuff of regular life,” and “turning it into fashion magic.”

The thing I love about thrift stores is the opportunity to really put your creative wits to good use, for instead of going to a store and choosing from the stores pre-selected styles that imply more ways to buy their clothes to look like the women they think you want to look like, thrifts stores really test your imagination to choose from a wide assortment of clothes and formulate your own idea of what looks great on you. In my fashion, it’s a test in filtering. Not only that, you can buy the clothes for so cheap, one can cut, safety pin, rip, add and twist the clothes you buy to be tailor made just for you, by you, and without the guilt of altering a pair of pants that cost $30 from a popular store.

As much as you would think thrift stores would have worn, and out of date clothes, if you should look deep inside yourself with a bit of open-mindedness, you might be less reluctant to consider the out-of-the-box ways of wearing the old and used items you find to fit into your style diaspora, ensuring a show of true originality and confident flare. In my fashion, "Buffalo Girls" is a good example of the similar items one can try to buy at the thrift store to match the playful looks dawned by these young girls. With the right amount of layering, and the correct combinations of interesting textures colors and prints, these examples open the imagination to what items to focus your sartorial search at the thrift.

EDITOR'S LETTER: August 2012

After doing a lot of thinking about Acceptance last month, it was funny that towards the end of the month I received this email from Will and Guy’s Joke of the Day . It was a series of quotes from the popular 19^th century author, wit, and quite the dandy, Oscar Wilde. Please take these in, for in my fashion they speak a lot for the ironic truths of our world.


Statue of Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne in Dublin's Merrion Square

After reading these funny observations about life, parlaying from the subject of Acceptance, I knew that this month would just have to be about how being “Smart is Beautiful”! As I said in my last Style Maven post, ignorance is debilitating, and keeps us from learning the truths of life we need to know in order to be the people we need to be so we can help others.There is a promotional page that runs in Vogue that always proclaims the phrase “Smart is beautiful” and I have to agree, full-heartedly. Why do you think Vogue is such a revered magazine for the fashion onlooker? Because since 1892, they have documented the smart people who have been able to leave a significant mark in the history of their culture, and how they were able to rise above the masses and manifest an individual persona that left a certain impression on the people of their time. As I have found, no one knows everything there is to know about life, so it would make most sense to say that smart people are those that tend to put in the thought power and energy into making the most sense of a particular subject (i.e. fashion/style, sports, geography, cooking, and biology). In my fashion, strength in our modern society is using your wits and intelligence to do as much work for us as is needed to complete a certain task or goal. It’s interesting because while watching the Olympics I realized that there is a lot of hand-eye coordination that athletes must be in tune with in order to be successful. One has to be astutely aware of their own motions, and the motions of others, in the interest of beating one’s opponent, an opponent who has worked just as hard as you and wants that medal just as much as you. As late psychologist, Howard Gardner postulated, that of the nine types of intelligence we humans are to possess, this high type of intelligence would fall under bodily-kinesthetic intelligence [source]. People can be intelligent at many things including: fashion, sports, television, electronics, nature, animals, poetry, rocks, etc. There are so many things to think about! We weren't given this mental capacity of all the species on the planet to sit around not using our brains to explore all that is here in life to explore, physically through our environment, as well as interpersonally, for the mind is the single most unexplored continent on this planet! We are all capable of understanding life; it just depends on how much you make your brain work to pay attention to all the details of life. By learning from our experiences, which according to Wilde’s philosphy, is simply “the name we give our mistakes”, we are able to find our strengths and talents to use them to fuel our thinking, so we can know how to conquer forces of life that oppose us.



Mine and Dwight’s sartorial choices come from the energy of imagination, deliberation, and invention, which fall into a natural rhythm all our own, maintained by innate discipline and a keen sense of pleasure.

Considering the back-to-school season is right around the corner, I figured this would be an appropriate time to emphasize making the right choices (sartorially, and in our every day decision making), being more conscious of the things that happen in one’s environment, continually searching out knowledge, and being able to know how to use your gut when choosing your next steps in life. Just the same as when you have that overwhelming feeling of, “This was made for me,” when selecting that perfect garment in the store, is the same feeling one should have when shopping for the right decisions to make one’s life fulfilling, in all instances of one’s life. As is said in this past July’s Vogue cover profile of Emma Stone who has become an arbiter of a bit of wisdom she took from co-star, Ryan Gosling, who says, "Picking roles is like listening to songs on the radio: "There can be a lot of really great songs in a row, but then one comes on that just makes you want to dance." If you are not doing something in your life that's not making you want to dance, then maybe it’s time for you to reconsider your steps.