You look fabulous when you go all out, but sometimes you need to pull back in to catch your breath. When your life is nonstop GO GO GO, reach for easy, basic, comfortable pieces that you don’t have to think about and that will get you through the day by being your soft, accommodating, effortlessly flattering friends. Make your wardrobe one less thing to worry about and spend the extra time you just made doing things like sitting down to eat and running a brush through your hair once in a while. Don’t worry, the clothes on your back– they’ve got your back.

May we present to you a two-piece outfit that serves as an exceptionally flexible base for all your ventures and adventures.

To begin:

The tunic.

Dora Tunic

To end:

The jacket.

Petrelli Jacket

You can add:

A scarf.

Handknit Cowl by Jill Lauren

A necklace.

With Care Necklace

A sweater.

Beckett Sweater

The tunic is long enough to be a dress on its own, but we want to be toasty warm and cozy. So add pants. Any kind of pants. It looks good with black leggings, jeans, chinos, skinny legs, bellbottoms and trousers alike. For shoes, go with a durable, goes-with-everything classic:

Campus Boot

Don’t think. Don’t worry. Just put it on and go.

Yeah, right.

In the real world, in the backwoods sprawl of rural Pennsylvania, the 1990′s meant Champion sweatshirts. Seas of dingy flannel. Grunge. Dirt. As much brown, maroon, and taupe as you could choke down. The standard wardrobe was a rotating combination of gigantic band t-shirt, incredibly ill-fitting pants (jeans were in the awkward growing-out phase between the high waist of the 80′s and the obscenely low rise of the early aughts) and whatever atrocity your part-time waitress position at the diner could afford you from Hot Topic and the army surplus store. Imagine my horror when Teen Vogue recently announced Grunge was coming back.

No.

The whole “retro” thing is a reliable recurrence in the fashion industry. The 80′s re-did the 50′s, the 90′s made a halfhearted attempt at bringing back the 70′s, 2000-2005… let’s never speak of those years again, shall we not? To my perception, fashion has spent the past few years in a rehabilitative state, looking over its shoulder in embarrassment and chagrin, apologizing to those it has offended, taking deep breaths, lifting itself up, reaching towards the heavens, finding balance and integrity, and quietly trying to be better and do the right thing. And what it has done is amazing.

Nala Jacket

We’re seeing “retro” in a way it’s never manifested before, as a unified composite of only the best elements from each era. It’s like a pizza made entirely out of first bites. We now have, at one time, access to the gorgeous, full-skirted hourglass sundresses from the 50′s.

Tracy Dress

The bright, bold colors of the 80′s, tamed with some of the earthiness of the 90′s.

Cruz Dress

Colorblocking has resurfaced in a big way, but it’s the way Andy Warhol would have done it.

Covet Dress

Basha Shirt, A'Marie Shorts

Denim is appearing in washes you haven’t seen since mama took your Kodachrome away and the necklaces come in long, sweeping strands that graze across your abdomen as you swish down the street in your ankle-length bohemian skirt.

Hawk Jacket

Pleated Maxi Skirt, Fringe Top

You can accessorize with vintage gold tennis bracelets or with chunky beaded cuffs in the colors of a desert sunset.

Pants? You can have, with the exception of the 2000-2005 muffin-top horror we dare not speak of, anything you want. High waist? Yes. Mid rise? Yes. Tapered? Yes. Straight leg? Yes. Skinny? Sure, why not. Bellbottoms. Tailored. Slouchy. Denim. Black, blue, tan, and every other color of the rainbow. Yes. Anything you want, you got it. Yes.

Conrad Jeans

You can mix and match eras or go full-on Studio 54, and every look and combination is so nostalgic yet so charmingly authentic and fresh you look like you just walked out of a Polaroid.

Crochet Trim Dress

I may be running into the realm of exaggeration here because my view is admittedly limited; I very rarely shop anywhere but my workplace so my opinion is formed almost solely by Teen Vogue, National Geographic, and what I see in Queen of Hearts and Modern Love every day. And what I see is a wardrobe beyond belief, a glorious costume closet from which women can outfit themselves in shades of the past that have been thoroughly and sagely informed by the wisdom of experience. Our current selection for Spring seems almost indescribable, but “impeccably curated” springs to mind. It’s a rare and wonderful thing to find yourself in the midst of a renaissance and it’s even more precious when you’re aware of it. Ladies, it’s time to exhale. This is Camelot.

Mark Shorts

Georgette Jumpsuit

Oldie but Goodie. That pretty much sums it up.

It’s at about this point of the year when we start to feel similarly about our winter wardrobes.  The black leggings, the wool, the thermals, the turtlenecks, the browns and grays and navy blues, the cozy, suffocating layers of practicality.

It’s time to set your soul free.

Salsa Skirt

Royally Blue

Twirl in this.

These skirts, apart from the functionality of covering your body, are not practical.  They are gauzy, like laughter made material. They shriek with delightful asymmetry.  They billow and twirl when you walk, and when you dance? Forget about it. Spread those wings and float away on a cloud of chiffon.

So it goes– especially in fashion.

The cozy sweaters, badass boots, cute little moccasins, sparkly dresses, luxurious coats, gorgeous jewelry, cool accessories, and trim little sneakers that we drooled over and coveted when they were new are now being shown the door.  Get out. Git.

Tomorrow we begin our massive post-holiday sale, brutally slashing prices on perfectly good, gorgeous apparel so we can have space to fill the shops with a new wave of stunning dresses and shoes.  Out with the old and in with the new.  Once more and with feeling.

So why not take advantage of this opportunity to clothe your body in beauty and with style?  After all, you get to keep your body with you for your whole life.  Deck it out, keep it warm, and treat it well.

And we’re feeling good.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve.  What do we do on New Year’s Eve?  We celebrate.  We party.  We dance.  We raise our hopeful hands to the sky and trample the dust of days past under our feet.  We throw our clear, loud voices into tomorrow and let the echos of yesterday fall faintly behind us.  We let our torn and worn, tear-stained and travel-splattered garments drift away from our skin like threadbare leaves on the wind, and we clothe our fresh and naked bodies with fabrics woven from righteous threads of golden anticipation.  We take up the hands of our friends and enemies alike and, united in strength and beauty, barrel fearlessly into the unknown that lies ahead.  Because thus clad, you divine children of earth, swathed in love and light and courage,  standing shoulder to shoulder with your eyes calm and sharp and open, there is no strangeness in the world, and every step you take, wherever you take it, finds you at home.

Right?

Right.

Step in.

Dorothy's Dream. One is silver.

And step out.

Dorothy's Dream. The other is gold.

Happy New Year, with love.

Queen of Hearts and Modern Love Gift Certificate

You know what to get for your sensitive, caring, reliable sister.

Classic Frye Campus boots and leather care products

You know what you should buy for your new nephew.

Baby Moccasins from Laurentian Chief-- Back in stock!

You know what to get your mother

Hobo "Lauren" Wallet

and your father.

Wool Brixton Hat

But what do you buy for the friend who you sometimes don’t want to answer the phone for because every time you take her call you wind up too drunk, laughing too hard, way too late at night?  The one who you almost forgot to add to your shopping list because she never seems like she actually needs anything from anybody?  The girl who has a look that can melt a man into puddle of butter, and another that can freeze that grease spot to the floor for someone else to scrape off before she walks away without looking back?  The woman that you won’t hear from for weeks and then will show up on your doorstep, unannounced, with a bottle of wine and a jaw-breaking grin?

What’s a good gift for a bad girl?

You’d take her to a movie or ballet if she could sit still long enough or stay quiet– but she won’t.  You’d take her to a nice dinner, but she scarfs her food so fast it seems pointless to waste the chef’s talent.  You’d buy her something practical if you hadn’t just seen the Target gift card you got her last year poking out from underneath the fridge, forlornly glued to the floor with a paste of coffee grounds.  She’s strong and brash, stony silent or wicked loud.  Without saying a word, she makes a statement.  So why don’t you get her something to match?

Range and Sky Earrings

The Jan Michaels collection arrived this morning, clambered into the jewelry case, and proceeded to intimidate and awe the staff and customers.  It’s tough. It’s beautiful.  It’s brass.  It behaves like no other jewelry in the store, and never apologizes.  Semi-precious stones are used; precious never.  Stars galore, with no trace of a heart.

Masmary Star Ring

The earrings cascade in effusive fountains of joyfully chaotic, jangling chains of daggers, angles and points

Stars and Rays Earrings

sometimes running on for a length much past what you expected.

Comet Earrings

The rings are, we’ll not dance around it, big.  They’re a size you have to take seriously, and in designs that drip gorgeousness and never acquiesce to Cute.  She won’t be able to break one by accidentally smashing it into a wall during a series of wild gesticulations, and it will be slightly harder to lose on a shelf cluttered with black eyeliner and unpaid utility bills.

Deco Ring

Symbolism Ring

Cutout Ring

The single bracelet we received is glamorized chain mail.

Good Knight Bracelet

The necklace– oh, the necklace.  It begins with a pair of buttonlike exoskeletons that perch like tiny epaulets on her collarbone, the mouths of which expel eighteen strands of variegated fused brass chain and tiny hammered brass plates from one end to the other in an eternal swoosh of hard-edged, twisting elegance.  It would be at home paired with a male friend’s forgotten undershirt, with a silk toga on a slow-moving raft on the Nile, with, let’s face it, a burlap sack.

Gold Fountain Necklace

Do this woman a favor and come to the shop for a peek at the wares.  Because while she may be naughty, she’s also very nice.

P.S.  We would be remiss if we didn’t also include some of the TokyoMilk fragrances in this post, available at Homestyle, which is conveniently located across the street from Queen of Hearts.  Offering scents that smell like actual things that exist in the world (like wood, grass, and cocoa) in place of the cloying  representations of conceptual lust that give you a migraine in the mall, TokyoMilk is perfume for the woman that hates perfume.  It comes in sexy black square bottles with names like “Arsenic”, “Crushed”, “Bittersweet”, and my personal favorite, “Bulletproof”.  They even have one that smells like salt.  Salt.

That was me in 1998, in emphatic response to my health teacher asking me why I was so sure I would never have kids and why I thought I wouldn’t change my mind when I got older.  I still believe that reproducing, for me, would be foolish.

Pros: I’d get to play with a baby sometimes, I think my genes would be a good addition to the human pool, and my chances of a guarantee of being buried in a marked grave after I die would go up a little.

Cons: Every single other thing I can think of.  I can barely afford to feed myself and my cat.  I don’t want to own a car.  I already know a bunch of babies I can play with.  I’m bad at bills and paperwork.  I like to stay out late.  I hate cleaning the house.  I lock myself out of the house and forget things all the time.  Like, important things.  These are all excellent reasons for me to not to produce a child.  None of these reasons, though, are because of how gross the little parasite is and how fundamentally disgusting pregnancy and the process of gestation is.  Because while logic stands firmly on the anti-reproduction side of the fence, I WANT A GODDAMN BABY WITH EVERY CELL IN MY BODY.

I’m not scared of that scene from Alien anymore, now I’m scared of how much I feel like Sil from Species.  My brain chants, “babies suck, babies suck, throw the babies in the garbage truck,” while my blood seethes and every beat of my heart screams, “BREED.  BREED.  BREED.  BREED.”

These.  Don’t.  Help.

Are.  You.  Serious.

This Canadian company is owned by a mother and son team, and all their BABY MOCCASINS(!) are handcrafted in Canada.  They are soft.  They are tiny.  I hold one in the palm of my hand and it melts my heart of stone.  A tiny itsy bitsy little shoe for a tiny itsy bitsy burbly little human.  A little tiny human with soft downy hair on his tiny head, a head that smells like heaven.  Tiny little moccasins for ten tiny little toes, little toes you can pinch.  Please get a wallet or a sock for my ovaries to bite down on, because the sight of these sends my reproductive system into seizure.

And when your little baby starts to grow, he can grow into these:

If you need one more little push to get these for a baby or toddler you know, check out the packaging design:

This box will be the box that the child keeps colored pencils in.  And broken yo-yo’s.  And robin’s egg shells and perfect skipping stones and the torn page from a dirty magazine that he found in the woods and candy wrappers with jokes on them and bottle caps and a pocketknife.  Love.  Love.  Love.  Love.  Love.

The real revelation here is that dressing in black didn’t make us disappear at all.  It made us look very thin, elegant, and mysterious, and provided an excellent backdrop for our accessories.  For our subtly macabre gun casing and feather earrings.  For the sexy grandma turban hat and art deco necklace.  For our sleekly perfect, smooth, beautifully constructed 4-inch stilettos with the just-right toe and breathtaking vamp.

Lady Dress, knit turban hat, necklace by Shine, Thunderwing earrings, Hobo bag, Notty pumps.

Oh my God these shoes.

Notty Pumps

They’re so classy the labels on the boxes they come in are written in Latin.  They.  Are.  Beautiful.  The leather is stiff but supple, like a ballerina’s leg.  The insole is smooth, creamy, and flawless.  They’re so perfectly shaped, so perfectly proportioned, so perfectly perfect that they don’t look real.  These are cartoon shoes.  Jessica Rabbit wears these shoes, Betty Boop wears these shoes, Blondie Dagwood wears these shoes, but humans?  Humans like us?  Not until now.  And they come in FREAKING ORANGE!

Tulle dress, Gentle Fawn bag, Thunderwing earrings, Notty pump in RUST!

Black, orange and beautiful.  I just might be a grown-up for Halloween this year.

]]> http://queenofheartsandmodernlove.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/back-in-black/feed/ 0 queenofheartsandmodernlove LBD 006 LBD 002 LBD 009 http://queenofheartsandmodernlove.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/army-of-me/ http://queenofheartsandmodernlove.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/army-of-me/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:36:19 +0000 Queen of Hearts and Modern Love http://queenofheartsandmodernlove.wordpress.com/?p=701 Continue reading →]]> I can feel it coming in the air of the night… Oh, Lord.  Beneath the cool autumn breeze, lurking behind the sun-dappled trees in the pick-your-own apple orchard, haunting the hollow eyes of every scarecrow and jack o’ lantern, glistening on the rim of every pint of Oktoberfest, hiding in the dark recesses of the cinnamon stick in your hot cider, prowling around every corner of the corn maze… it waits.  It trembles.  It slavers and whimpers with dreadful impatience.  Soak up these few short, kind months of mercy because they end all too soon, a finite escalator that descends into the dark and forbidding maw of– shudder– winter.

You may suffer from the delusion that winter is great.  You may think it’s not so bad.  You are wrong.  Like a woman after childbirth, you have relegated your memories of winter to a hidden corner of your mind so that you may continue living past the horror.  Be brave.  Brush aside the obfuscating cobwebs comprised of fantasies of caroling, snuggling, hot chocolate, sledding and ice skating.  Replace them by acknowledging the reality of grey slush.  Never-ending sludge.  Sand in the road, and on your shoes, sand that gets tracked into your apartment, sand that finds its way into your bed.  Sand everywhere.  Ice everywhere.  Walking suddenly sucks, bicycling becomes perilous.  People stop picking up their dog’s crap, assuming the snow covered sidewalk will swallow it (it won’t).  It gets dark at 4:00 in the afternoon.  By February, you’ve lost all but one glove and that one glove has a missing index finger.  It’s cold, it’s oh so cold, and it’s all but endless.  But the worst part isn’t the cold.  The winter would be bearable if it was something you just felt on your skin and in your lungs and in the numbness of your toes.  But the cold comes in many forms.  It comes in wet, icy obstruction.  It comes in the terrible, distorted magnification of loneliness, every dark and solitary second stretched so thin and wide it can only be measured by a Dali clock.  It comes in bleak darkness.  And it comes in the dingy, shadowy, grainy absence of color.

I call on all of you to raise arms against this unwelcome assault.  We must not permit the greyness that waits to surround us to take its bitter, sallow pleasure in the fading joy in our hearts nor the heavy bowing of our weather-beaten heads.  Rise up, O children of light!  Melt the pestilential ice with heat from the ray guns of thy hearts!  Raise thy righteous fists to the roiling heavens!  Arm thyselves against the grim assault of grey and dazzle it to pieces, blind it with rainbows and send it fearfully whimpering into its fetid cave!  Surround thyselves with an impenetrable prismatic sphere of COLOR!  So Say We All!

Luscious Orange Hobo Wallet

Gumball Rings

Pretty little options at the Make Your Own earring bar

Leather Laser Cuts from the Make Your Own Earring Bar

Citrus Punch Feather Necklace

Shocking Pink Badass Earring.

Foil Bootie

Primary Directive

Bounty of Bows

Neon Driftwood by Shine

ARE! YOU! READY?

The past few weeks at the shop have done a little bit more than inspire my fancy.  The past few weeks have been punching me in the stomach.  Never before has a season of mainstream fashion condensed and reproduced such an alarming verisimilitude of one of my earliest, most visceral memories:  Sneaking into my mother’s closet and curling up in the nest of garments on the floor, the slatted sunlight streaming through the bamboo window blinds and through the half-open closet door and warming my body in zebra stripes as I nestled my cheek further into the cotton womb of her clothes.  Give me a break, I was three.  My mother dressed like Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment, and she looked like Debra Winger too except thinner, taller, prettier, and with gigantic plastic-rimmed glasses.  She aspired to dress like Annie Hall.  She was also a big hippie.  The bottom of her closet was a soft pile of denim, plaid, paisley, masculine vests, and gauzy cotton gowns.  The heap smelled faintly of sandalwood and strongly of safety.  On her feet she wore white Reebok sneakers or moccasins.  I have never seen her in a pair of high heels, a short skirt, an ounce of makeup, or any jewelry save for the stack of religious medals that dangled from the chain around her neck and her plain gold wedding band.

We have menswear.  We have plaid (oh SO much plaid).

We have handmade Indian scarves that smell precisely like the bottom of my mother’s closet.

Handmade scarves by Madavi Oliver.

We have a solid perfume that smells exactly like what Francine Stasky would have worn if perfume didn’t give her terrible migraines.

Solid perfume in Jazmina by Providence Perfume Company

We have lovely leather handbags that have just the right taste of hand-me-down.  We have sneakers.  And we have moccasins.

Oh BOY do we have moccasins.

Suppose, after two weeks of feeling really good about everything, I mean overwhelmingly good about everything, you wake up one day feeling.  Just.  Awful.  You don’t want to listen to LCD Soundsystem, you want to listen to Elliot Smith.  The coffee isn’t doing its stupid job.  You’ve hardly eaten a thing all week but your stomach is poking out anyway.  You’re tired and grouchy.  You glower inside, “Well so much for that.  My awesome attitude is gone and now I’m some depressed jerk who hates everything.”  You suddenly realize, as you brush the cupcake crumbs off your swollen, tender breasts, what the matter is.  You hate frosting.  You hate cake.  You hate sugar.  Yet you sought that cupcake out like a K-9 unit.  You’re not depressed!  You’re pre-menstrual!  What do you do?  What do you wear?

You surround yourself in softness and plaid.  Nothing tight, nothing scratchy.  Slip your feet into a pair of Minnetonkas and bring yourself deliciously down to earth.  Cuddle up.  Nestle down.  Come to mommy.

Karen wears a Brixton hat, Asher sweater, 3/4 sleeve flannel shirt, snuggle bunny sweater skirt, and Minnetonka ankle boots.

Liz wears the Lady dress, Romaine coat, handknit cap by Lucille Rose, knit leggings, and Minnetonka back zip ankle boots.

Karen wears the Gabby blouse, mid-calf prairie skirt, handmade scarf by Madavi Oliver, and Minnetonka knee-high fringe boots.

Oh, the power of clothes.