remixing fashion and luxury for reality

I was only 14 years old, old enough to scar the delicate framework of my self-esteem, when I was caught wearing shoulder pads to school. I still can’t get my Mom to admit she was so wrong to make me wear shoulder pads back in the day. I get that it was the 80’s and all but I was still a little girl for chrissake. This obnoxious jock (but cute of course) came running up to me and grabbed my shoulders and asked me if I was going to join the football team. Would you have died too?

Fast forward 20 years and here I am playing with shoulder pads again! Well strong structured shoulders at least. I guess garment technology has improved since he 80’s and padding is not necessary to sculpt a look. Very good thing. No embarrassing white pads flying out of your jacket.

What do the rest of you think? I get a sense that the strong shoulder trend is not one that is going to take off with the masses. Maybe that’s a good thing. It certainly doesn’t look right on just everybody. I think it helps if you have a stronger profile to begin with. If you’re dainty and delicate this look might swallow you up for dinner.

I went el frugal route and picked up this zippered cardigan with sharper shoulders at H&M over the weekend, (see 1st photo below). Barely makes the cut as a strong shoulder top but it’ll do. And for under $30 it’ll tide me over until I find the real strong shoulder piece for my closet.

The rest of these were strong shoulder looks that inspired me..

Vintage is my new thing. Or at least I want it to be. It’s interesting to see that vintage and indi fashion is now reaching the masses. It makes sense though with the commoditization of fashion.. girls and women are craving a new flavor, something different than the stuff you see on every other girl on the street. I always figured vintage was too exclusive for me since it’s tough to find good stuff, and I’ve never felt totally comfortable wearing pre-worn clothes (my Mom would kill me!). But recently I came upon modcloth.com, an online retailer that offers vintage inspired clothing at decent pricing, the $40-$200 range. Off the bat I could feel the techie flavor of this site… someone who understands web design and basic web 2.0 concepts has had some influence on this site. I love the “Be the Buyer” program where you can vote on apparel designs which get manufactured if popular enough, as well as the “Notify me of restock” option. They even offer an inventory countdown so you know if there’s only 1 or 2 pieces of a style left! I’ve grumbled about this feature ever since I started spending money online. Modcloth sells mostly new clothing. The true vintage items for sale seem to only come up every once in a while and sell out in a blink. I’m starting to look for more vintage sites so tell me your favorites!

Here’s a few of the things from Modcloth I’m considering…