Let's talk more about clothes

[lindseykuper]

Almost a year and a half ago, I mentioned that I was thinking about starting a clothes blog. That never happened, because right after posting that, I went through a long period of not caring much about clothes. Now I'm back in another caring-about-clothes period, and I'm starting to post some outfit photos again. (Credit goes to Alex alexr_rwx for the photography on most of these.)

I'm now pretty sure I won't start a clothes blog, because it seems apparent that if I did, it would end up lying fallow for months or years at a time while I go through phases of not caring, and nothing's sadder than an abandoned blog. But I do still want to talk about clothes! I also want to have meta-discussions about outfit photos. For instance, I've been thinking about what gets loved on the ModCloth Style Gallery and why. Although I admire a lot of the stuff that's posted there, I tend to only "love" a photo if it's an outfit that I could see myself actually wearing and if the photography is good. Anna's outfits, for instance, are jaw-droppingly amazing; she turns the sidewalk into a catwalk. But I usually don't "love" them, because I don't think I could wear them. leahnmoreno's looks, on the other hand, are a lot more approachable for me. Her photos also have an aesthetic that I'd like to accomplish with my own outfit photos. They're usually outdoors; she's often not smiling or looking at the camera. Most importantly, she looks like she belongs in the clothes and in her environment.

Among my own photos, this one from a while back was a deliberate attempt to appeal to the cute, colorful and retro ModCloth aesthetic (or as cute, colorful and retro as I get, anyway, which isn't very). It didn't work. In fact, to date, my most popular Style Gallery photo (to the extent that any of them are popular) is this one from 2014, in which I looked a bit more curvy, and I suspect that ModCloth might be rewarding me for being a curvy person in a short skirt. More experiments are needed. (The skirt, incidentally, is the same one I was wearing in the former photo! Unfortunately, I haven't been wearing it much lately; the pleats are coming out and it's looking a bit worse for wear. It's just a knit polyester skirt; I didn't think they were serious about that whole "dry clean only" thing...)

Comments

[brainwane]

I do not have that much to say, at the moment, about the photos, or about clothing conversations in general. But clothes, argh, clothes. I need to pack today for WisCon, PyCon, a one-day train trip, and a day and a half in the Bay Area. And I prefer not to check baggage. Yay travel clothesline. I briefly thought about just wearing pantsuits the whole time and thought that might be a stronger BUSINESSWOMAN signal than I really want to send, and might reduce my credibility at PyCon, but hey, at least they're comfortable and I like them!

If you felt like making a freeyourstuff plugin to retrieve your ModCloth reviews/photo likes/interactions/ratings, that might help you do more data analysis on the raw JSON!

In the userpic I use on this comment, I am wearing a shirt that Leonard and another friend characterize as incredibly 1990s, and that was my lucky shirt in high school. It is now part of a t-shirt quilt we had made through Project Repat. Goodbye shirt I loved!

[lindseykuper]

I liked your pantsuits at !!Con too! It's too late now, but I imagine that the BUSINESSWOMAN signal could be offset somehow, perhaps with quirky shoes or a bright hair color.

[teph]

Could be that the pleats would've lasted longer with dry cleaning. I get not-too-bad results with home dry cleaning kits.

ModCloth is great! So glad so are posting there again.

[lindseykuper]

Yeah. I'm actually thinking about getting another of this skirt and taking proper care of it this time. Home dry cleaning kits have been kind of hit or miss for me, though.

[brainwane]

Very belated comment to say: BRAS. Are you happy with your current bra wardrobe & intake process? If not, the next time you come to NYC, consider a bra fitting/shopping at Linda's -- I just did this and have the "aaaah" satisfied feeling of having upgraded my bra wardrobe.

[lindseykuper]

Thanks for the recommendation! I think my bra situation could stand to be better, although it isn't as big a problem for me as it is for some of my harder-to-fit friends.