Two Years

I was going to give an explanation for today's casual outfit, but then I realized two things: 1) today is the 2-year anniversary of Fashion Trend Guide, and 2) some people just look at the images on my site and it's painfully obvious from their comments and questions that they're not reading the text. (If you can't read English, however, then this is OK.) In light of these two facts I'm going to forgo the anecdotes about my outfit and any nostalgic commentary about blogging for the past two years, and I'll just gently encourage some of my "readers" to actually read the words that I take the time to write...it stimulates the brain! But before I go off to celebrate, I'd like to thank all of my readers (yes, even the ones who just look at the photos) and loyal visitors for their support and inspiration. Cheers!

Wearing: top - Old Navy, necklace - Diva by Miss Selfridge, jeans - American Eagle (Men's), shoes - Colin Stuart

In A Red Vest

A stroll through Forever 21 revealed this surprisingly bold faux leather vest. With epaulettes, fringe, and an eye-catching crimson color, it's not something I'd imagined myself wearing. Upon first seeing it, I was intrigued, and wondered if it came in black (which it didn't). After silently debating the merits and drawbacks of wearing such a cheerful and bold hue, I decided to buy it. Pieces like this aren't easy to find at a price point less than $40.

My goal for the end of February was to restrict my shopping in order to hold out for McQueen's collection for Target (of which I will probably buy a lot), but with more spring arrivals, it's becoming quite a challenge. Only 8 more days to go...

Wearing: striped sailor top - H&M, vest - F21, leather inset jeans - Cheap Monday, boots - Frye

The Adobe Aesthetic

To feed my budding curiosity about residential architecture and design, I went on a brief architectural tour of town. It's fascinating to see the blend of historic architectural styles with the new buildings that dominate my suburban landscape. My favorite houses are always the late 19th century Queen Anne Victorians, with their ornate woodwork, charming gables, and wraparound porches. Luckily, there are plenty in town that were not torn down during the building boom of the 1950s and '60s. But before such Victorian houses began to spring up, adobes like the one below housed the earliest settlers in town. The small three room building I'm standing in front of was built in 1857 and was used to raise a family with 13 children. The floors were made of hard-packed dirt and consisted of a mixture of ox blood and clay to harden them. Imagine living in a place like that...it certainly makes me appreciate all the comforts of modern life.

Wearing: black tee- Fruit of the Loom, printed tunic - F21, military jacket - I ♥ Ronson, braided belt - F21, leggings - American Apparel, slouched cowboy boots - H&M

Smitten With Studs

It was love at first sight when I spotted these complicated yet comfortable heels online. In my book, an array of studded straps, a cone-shaped four inch heel, a back zip entry, and a half inch platform equal perfection. When I saw that they didn't have my size, I searched high and low until I found them on a competitor's website. I have a feeling these will quickly become my favorites to pair with my leggings and floral dresses this spring.

Wearing: leggings - F21, heels - Wild Rose

Special Request

I know this is kind of random, but I saw these New Look sequin trousers in a British magazine and gasped. They're one part harem and one part disco with a dash of sportiness that feels so right for spring. Even better, they're on sale for £20 on New Look's website. The only problem is that New Look doesn't ship to the U.S., so if there are any U.K. readers out there who'd like to take on the role of my personal shopper and buy these for me, I'd be happy to compensate you for the cost, the effort, and the shipping fees. (Pretty, pretty please!) So email me or leave a comment if you're interested.

image from newlook.co.uk

New Shoes

Every fashion-obsessed girl knows that footwear can make or break an outfit. As a lifelong lover and collector of boots, I can certainly attest to this. As stores unveil their new spring shoes and offer more warm weather styles, I can't help but lust after a few more pairs that would update my wardrobe perfectly. Some key trends to look for when choosing some new shoes this season are:

• exotic textures (reptile prints, feathers, etc.)
• ankle cuffs and ankle interest
• studs, rhinestones, buckles, spikes, and fringe as embellishment
• slouchy boots
• strappy, cage-y heels
• platforms to the tune of 1" or more (previously thought to be reserved for "exotic dancers" but now at the top of my wish list due to their height-boosting comfort)
• gladiators in various shapes - flats, wedges, and stilettos (yes, they're back)

Since it's not reasonable for me to go out and buy all of the shoes I'd like this season, and because I'm no slouch when it comes to online shopping and creating collages in Photoshop, I've selected some of my top cheap chic mall store picks to help supress my urge to buy. I can't help it, I have a...

images from aldoshoes.com and bakersshoes.com

My Foam Phase

Foam magazine has caught my eye upon many visits to the periodicals section at Barnes & Noble, but I never actually brought one to the cash register until last week. The February/March 2009 issue features model-and-surfer-turned-designer Erin Wasson on the cover.

Although the Orange County-based magazine is geared towards female surfers, its "Flotsam & Jetsam" editorials were surprisingly more fashion-y than I was expecting. Surf-inspired apparel and accessories have certainly come a long way since the days of my youth, where hibiscus-printed board shorts and simple logo-emblazoned tees and sweatshirts reigned on the streets of my Orange County beach community. As I flipped through Foam, I found myself mentally bookmarking many an item in the magazine, including the colorblock and zebra print shorts below.

This leads me to ponder whether the action sports industry is more in tune with trends than they were during my youth, or have my tastes recently become more surf-inspired...or both? A decade ago, when I was mostly shopping at trendy cheap chic mall stores, I wouldn't have considered wearing brands like Roxy, Element, Stussy, or Billabong because they didn't appeal to my late '90s style sensibility. It's not that I didn't always identify with these brands - I did wear my beloved Billabong sweatshirt to shreds when I was in my junior high school wannabe surfer stage.

And in keeping with the modern girl's flourishing appetite for street style photos, Foam's website even has a street style section worth peeking at which is updated weekly.

The Traveling Peacoat

If you're wondering why I haven't updated in almost a week, it's due to a brief bout of disillusionment with the fashion blogosphere and a lack of creative inspiration. It seems like everyone and their daughter/cousin/sister/niece has a fashion blog these days, and frankly, when something becomes this pervasive, it feels like time to stay ahead of the crowd and move on to the next big thing...

So anyways, a sunny day spent in Ojai in addition to the purchase of some Frye boots and the much-anticipated arrival of the March issue of Elle (in my opinion, the best issue in months) have all helped to chase away my ho-hum sentiments regarding fashion and thankfully, my merriment for spring trends and fashion blogs has been reignited.

There's nothing particularly interesting about this outfit, but when I bought the wool peacoat from Old Navy about six years ago, I never imagined how much wear I'd get out of it. It's kept me warm during countless chilly days and evenings spent in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Vancouver, and Orange County. I even lugged it to London in the spring of '07, despite the fact that it must weigh several pounds.

Wearing: long-sleeved tee - J. Crew, plaid shirt - Heritage 1981, peacoat - Old Navy, jeans - vintage, boots - Wet Seal

Education

Yesterday a google search revealed yet another website that has stolen content from Fashion Trend Guide. Yes, it's frustrating, but it continues to happen. So I persist in adding © logos to my photos and an easy-to-read legal notice on my sidebar, but people continue to violate the law by stealing content from my site. To answer one reader's complaint about why I have a "truncated feed," copyright violations are the reason why I use an abbreviated feed instead of a full one. People actually subscribe to feeds just to copy and paste the content onto their sites. And it's not just me they're stealing from. Often these pathetic sites that steal consist entirely of stolen posts from various fashion blogs. Then, when I contact them to complain and remove my content, they pretend it was an ex-employee who stole it or that they didn't know the content was mine...and then they ask for a list of all the posts that are mine...as if I'm supposed to waste an hour of my time going through their site to find all of my stolen work!

This leads me to believe that:

a) I should be paid to write or develop content for a fashion site instead of having it stolen from me (because apparently someone finds my content interesting or newsworthy)
b) people around the world need to be better educated about copyright law and intellectual property
c) I should consider going to law school to pursue a career in IP so I can prosecute these a**holes
d) this kind of blog theft should not be tolerated in the online community
e) we bloggers need to educate ourselves so that we don't break the law by stealing photos
f) we bloggers need to band together in some way so that our content does not get stolen, or so that we get paid to share content

Fortunately, IFB recently wrote an amazingly informative and useful post about what photos you can and can't use on your blog, and where you can get photos legally. I've been wanting to rant about this topic for many months now, but didn't get inspired until I read the post. One of my pet peeves is and always has been blogs/bloggers that use nothing but copyrighted photography from other sites/photographers...or bloggers that do this and pass the photos off as their own. When I first started my blog, my goal was to use all of my own photos. As time went on, I noticed hundreds of fashion bloggers freely lifting photos from the web and putting a notice on their site that they'd take the photos down if someone emailed them to do so. Note to new fashion bloggers - even though most of us use photos that aren't our own (yeah, I've done it too), this is not ok. We should find legal photos to use or better yet, get out our cameras and start clicking.

In fact, one of the first things I do when reading a new fashion blog is to evaluate how many photos actually belong to that blogger. In my opinion, the more photos that are not their own, the worse the blog. For example, I can see the Sart's street style photos on his site, so why would I want to go to another site to see his work just because some fledgling fashion blogger liked his photos and was inspired to re-post them on their site? The same goes for stealing photos of celebrities. I fail to understand why certain blogs that do this are wildly popular. To me, they lack imagination and originality.

At the risk of ranting on and on about this pervasive problem, I'll just wrap this post up with many thanks to Jennine for covering such an important topic on her site!

Target's GO International Private Label 5 Now Available Online

An email from Target this morning alerted me that the GO International Private Label 5 collection is now available on Target's website. I ordered the blue zipper dress (pictured below, left) in my early morning excitement. Unfortunately, the collection is not yet available in any of the stores in my area, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I'm intrigued by the bandage tube top (pictured on the very bottom, far right), which looks just like the strapless dress from Thakoon's spring '09 show.

Regarding the striking similarity of the tube top to Thakoon's dress...does this mean that Target works with a designer and then knocks them off...or perhaps Thakoon anonymously offered to help design this collection?

© 2009 Fashion Trend Guide. May not be reproduced without permission.

Trend On The Rise - Bleached Denim

While I often sing the praises of Target's GO International clothing options, I have yet to touch on Walmart's apparel offerings. The truth is that I probably step into Walmart a whopping three times per year. One of those rare Walmart shopping trips took place last week, where I entered the store with a specific list of items to buy and walked out with these surprisingly on-trend bleached jeans by trendy Junior brand Lei. Not only was I impressed by the skinny fit, but the price was very competitive at only $20. Considering that I've been drooling over brands like Siwy and Karen Walker, who have bleached jeans at price points upwards of $100, it's nice to know that I can buy into this trend at such a low price point. (Or, if I had the patience, I could spend almost nothing by taking some secondhand jeans and bleaching them myself.) I never thought I'd write this, but hooray for Walmart for having incredibly affordable bleached denim!

Wearing: tee - Fruit of the Loom, faux fur jacket - H&M, feather necklace - F21, beaded & layered necklaces - vintage, jeans - Lei, boots - GoJane

My Alias

With all the denim trends that come and go each season, there's always one style of jeans that remains a classic - it has a dark rinse, no more than 3% stretch, a medium rise, and is boot cut or slightly flared with 5-pocket styling. In my opinion, these are the most flattering and ingenious qualities in a pair of jeans that will enable them to stand the test of time and prevent them from looking dated. With clever styling, they can go from the classroom or the boardroom to happy hour or the dance floor.

Consider the qualities of your favorite pair of jeans. Do they slim your thighs, elongate your legs, make your booty look perky, or feel so comfortable you don't want to take them off? My favorite pairs are tight in all the right places, don't gap out in the waist, have perfectly placed back pockets, and have a rise of at least 7.5".

After the designer denim craze (which began for me in 2003 with a pair of Sevens), I learned exactly how I wanted my perfect pair of jeans to fit. Luckily, the designers of Alias Premium Denim understand exactly what women like me want, and they have designed their "Sweet Dee" jeans accordingly. A slightly higher rise in the back than in the front? Check. A sophisticated dark rinse with subtle fading on the thighs? Check. A slightly flared leg opening which visually elongates and slims the leg? Check. Subtle stitching on the back pockets? Check. Thick, quality fabric with just the right amount of stretch? Check. In fact, the fabric was so sturdy that I broke two needles while hemming my pair. It seems like they've got all the bases of premium denim covered, but without the triple digit price tag. Incredibly, these jeans retail for a mere $40. With affordable brands like Alias, I can now happily write that my days of overspending on designer denim are long gone.

Wearing: floral blouse - F21, skinny scarf - Old Navy, Army jacket - I ♥ Ronson, studded belt - F21, jeans - Alias Premium Denim, boots - H&M

I Heart Ronson?

In my quest to find this on-trend floral jumpsuit from the I ♥ Ronson for JCPenney line, I spent a few minutes inspecting the collection today.

image from nylonmag.com

Although I'm a loyal fan of designer diffusion lines, especially for budget retailers, this collection wasn't particularly inspiring. Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of Charlotte Ronson's youthful, flirty design aesthetic. I wholeheartedly adore the C. Ronson line, as I've been admiring multitudes of Charlotte's designs since I began reading Japanese magazines five years ago.

In the I ♥ Ronson line, there were ruched tunics, tailored vests and blazers, simple tank tops, and a few printed woven pieces in simple silhouettes. I was slightly disappointed because they were basic items that I could find just about anywhere else in the mall. I did admire the cool, muted color palette, which consisted of dusty mauves, subdued blues, deep grays, and frosty pinks.

The one and only item that caught my eye (and that I ended up buying) was this Army green cotton jacket. It has a detachable hood and drawstring waist, which makes it convenient and versatile. I've been searching flea markets and thrift stores high and low for a jacket just like this for many months. It will be the perfect layering piece to wear over:
1. a floral dress and combat boots
2. a tunic, leggings, and ankle boots
or
3. shredded cutoff shorts with a loose tee and Converse sneakers

Cotton jacket, $65, I ♥ Ronson for JCPenney

In the meantime, I'll be excitedly awaiting the arrival of the floral jumpsuit at a JCPenney near me.