à la mode: 5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl - Jane Herman Bishop

DAY 1

Oddly enough, I find I am not the type of person who likes to wear jeans to work, or too often as a matter of fact. With my personality and career mindedness, I am the type of person who enjoys dressing up in dress slacks and blazers on a daily to appear most professional and appropriate. 

DAY 2

But Vogue contributor and cofounder of JeanStories.com, Jane Hermon Bishop, has me rethinking the notion I have for jeans. In my fashion, she almost gives me a new outlook on jeans as a whole. The way she puts her outfits together, the jeans she wears are almost camouflaged for what they are. 

DAY 3

For the sake of her blog, Jane wears jean every day, and her Day 4 look is one I adore because she isn’t wearing jean pants, but a jean jacket. She’s not particularly confined to wearing jean pants everyday but she was able to incorporate her love of the fabric elsewhere on her person. Plus with her Dries Van Noten pants almost look like jeans with a floral pattern on them, so the look is even more intriguing in that way. I also love a pointy shoe if you remember from my à la mode post "Retro Remix".

DAY 4

Her Day 5 look is a classic look that still passes as professional. It’s so basic, but the clean, crisp look of her tan jacket mixed with her clean white patterned blouse, and clean dark blue denim is a look I am sure no one would look away from. A clean look is always admirable, in my fashion. Although I do have a certain admiration for her ripped jeans in her Day 1 look. 

DAY 5

Paired with her black sweater with the small Christmas tree designs on the sleeve, and that colorfully patterned hood, I am attracted to the adolescent look especially with her canvas shoes. It’s another clean look, despite the rips in her pants. She is my inspiration for Casual Fridays at work.

à la mode: 5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl - Stella Greenspan

As evident by last year’s MET Gala Exhibition, Punk: Chaos to Couture, the rebellious nature of the punk aesthetic has evolved into so many interpretations since its beginnings in the last 60’s and early 70’s. In my fashion, punk in general terms means having the courage to be who you are and express yourself either through your clothing, attitude, actions, or beliefs, despite the feelings other may have towards you. Exuding a “punk” attitude says a lot about your strength in character and how you think. It makes for an intriguing personality for people to have to try to understand, and appreciate. 

DAY 1

When it comes to dressing for business, if you prefer a more hard rock inspired edge in the clothes you wear, it can be hard to incorporate that punky edge while still appearing professional enough to climb one’s corporate ladder. I myself have always enjoyed a more grungy, edgy look myself since middle school wearing beat up Chuck Taylors (which I still have), black clothes, and holes in my pants, but now, as an adult chasing a higher salary and executive leadership, my grungy looks are best saved for my weekends, and at home.

DAY 2

But sometimes, going to work, I like to add a bit of punk into the mix in my own ways. I believe Stella Greenspan, Fashion Assistant to Creative Director Grace Coddington, is a great example of how to do that. As one can see in her Day 1 look, there is something delightfully offbeat and hard edged about her considering her mid calf length leather skirt, teal stockings, and deconstructed leather shoes, all by Balenciaga. Unlike a lot of the smiling, gleaming Vogue girls who wear upbeat playful colors and patterns, Stella prefers to wear darker colors, and still looks as gleaming and smiley as any other Vogue girl. I love that she is able to wear dark colors, leather, and varsity jackets that are unconventional for the office, but the fact that she adds pops of color and crisp white collared shirts qualify her looks as professional attire. 

DAY 3

All of her looks are youthful, functional, appropriate for work, and say that this girl sees the beauty of the dark side. There are many variations to a girl’s personality, and a girl doesn’t have to be girly, flirty, and colorful to be beautiful. Her Balenciaga shoes are my favorite aspect to her looks for she wears them with each look, and there are so many qualities to them, that say so much about Stella in and of themselves. She inspired me to be comfortable wearing my big black Nike boots to work as long as I can balance the look out with some really tailored pants, and an interesting crisp collared shirt like her Day 4 look. 

DAY 4

I adore her Day 3 evening look and her Balenciaga skirt. The fact that she plays with the stripe effect from the skirt with her scarf and her sweater is genius, in my fashion. Along with the vintage jacket with all those zippers, and the leather shoes, it all culminates into a rough and tumble look that is still girly, flirty, and polished, and positively Vogue. 

DAY 5

à la mode: 5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl - Preetma Singh

DAY 1

I love a women who is a fan of menswear dressing! Being a man, when a women can wear menswear in creative ways, it sometimes they give me inspiration for my own looks. That is definitely the case with Preetma Singh, Fashion Assistant to Vogue’s Index Editor, Jessica Sailer (another Vogue Girl on 5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl). 

DAY 2

While men’s fashions are traditionally about how well one can follow the rules, women’s fashions are more about how well one can break the rules, so women wearing menswear is an interesting marriage between the two. In my fashion, Preetma’s fashion queues certainly inspire a daring sensibility to one’s clothing choices for following the rules can be so boring. 

DAY 3

Preetma stands apart from the crowd with her interesting choices in sweaters such as her Day 1 look in that intricate Jonathan Saunders sweater, which in my fashion, is unforgettable. What also helps her pairing of unorthodox patterns and colors as we see in her Day 3 look in that Rochas dress by Marco Zanini, polka dot socks, and John Galliano T-strapped heels. Even though the look seems a bit “old-lady-who-lives-in-a-shoe”, there is a quality to the look that is comical yet appreciatively witty in its composition. 

DAY 4

In my fashion, her Day 5 look is perfect because it infuses both men’s and women’s wear together in the most perfect harmony. It’s clean, crisp, and overall classic. It’s a strong professional look with the blazer and shoes, but it’s so regally elegant considering the flow of the lightweight dress. Her addition of a smoky eye is genius for a sexy night look and worth considering the next time you go out for cocktails after work.

DAY 5

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.

à la mode: 5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl - Ester Adams

I am the type of person who enjoys always being prepared. Because of this, I have always been the type of person to carry a multitude of items on my person. I always have a hard time packing suitcases on trips because I tend to want to take half my closet thinking about what I “might” need, and how disappointed I would be if I needed something I left at home. 

DAY 1

On a daily I carry so many folders, magazines, books, and other odd essentials (or what I think are essentials) that I find it amusing whenever one of my friends get a chance to pick it up because their arms always drop a few inches in from the weight and they are always so shocked to learn how much stuff I lug around on a daily. But it’s 2014 now! On top of giving my sunglasses a break, I am on a mission to reduce my carrying load by sticking with the bare necessities. In accomplishing this feat, I continually remind myself of Vogue Fashion Writer, Ester Adams. 

DAY 2

Being featured on “5 Days, 5 Looks, 1 Girl”, she too is training herself to "downsize from a large tote full of maybe-I’ll-need-them-maybe-I-won’t items to manageable handbags." It’s funny that based on Ester’s overall minimalist looks that one would classify her as a pack rat, but in my fashion, her selection of small shoulder bags and clutches work well to mask her fastidious nature.

DAY 3

She is my motivation every morning when I’m packing my tote for the day to keep it to a minimum. “You don’t need everything!” I tell myself over and over again. I recently found a clutch to stash my blogger essentials in such as my little black notebook, Galaxy tab, flash drives, a pen and pencil, my phone and charger and that has availed me to carry those items very chicly. I can carry it in my hands or slide it in my bag. 

DAY 4

A clutch is such a chic accessory, and Ester Adams use of clutches and small shoulder bags remind me of the easiness that is projected in one’s look when you aren't carrying your home on your back like a snail. I feel much lighter, I am able to move much swifter, and I feel by carrying only certain essentials and clearing the clutter from my bag, I have in essence cleared some clutter from my brain. Ester is a good reminder to keep it simple at times. 

DAY 5