Thanksgiving (and stuff)

Today I'm sort of tired and under the weather, and it's my (real!) birthday eve, so I'm going to be lazy and take a break from thinking up blog posts and put up this portrait instead. Isn't it lovely? It's by Emily Harper, who has a great blog full of whimsical little illustrations and pretty things.  Emily said she tried to make this portrait like a silent film star one which just makes me like it even more . . . Portraits that make you look better than you are in real life are the nicest.  Plus this one makes me want to track down a navy flower headband.

I'm going to be in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, so I don't know how much I'll be posting over the next few days.  But auctions are ending tomorrow night like usual, and there'll be a small (but good!) update, too.  And I'm sure I'll get around to taking pictures of my birthday dress!  I hope all of you here in the US have a great Thanksgiving and that all of you meat-eaters eat extra turkey for me (I kind of miss it).  I think I'll just eat extra chocolate instead.

A forest through the trees . . .

 Photos from Church & State's Fall 09 Collection, A Forest Through the Trees

The Portland label Church & State always makes me think of Elizabeth Hawes, for some reason.  I think that it's because the clothes they design are always the good, simple American clothes that Elizabeth Hawes was always talking up in her books.  They're pretty clothes that don't try to be anything they're not . . . they look perfectly at home in the forest and oceanside settings they get photographed in, and I can definitely picture them on the cute girls of magical Portland as they ride their bikes around town and visit flea markets and go to concerts and do all of the magical Portland things there are to do.  (I'm jealous!)

November things . . .

Pictures by Drew

'50s blouse: Ebay

Wool shorts and Dooney and Bourke bag: Etsy

Shoes and jacket: thrift stores

Hat: Urban Outfitters

We spent this weekend doing holiday sorts of things like celebrating late November birthdays and scrambling to get gifts bought and things ready for the Thanksgiving trip we're taking Wednesday.  I always forget how tiring this time of year is . . . it makes me extra lazy and sort of useless.  I ended up breaking my estate sale-visiting streak by sleeping in both days this weekend, but it was a birthday weekend so I kind of let myself be lazy.  My real birthday's on Thanksgiving, but I don't think birthdays that fall on holidays really count.  So on my new birthday (really, Scarlet's birthday--November 20th!) Drew and I went to this wonderful dessert and coffee place in town called Cafe Intermezzo (Lauren, that's where we went with you and Neil!) and had oreo cheesecake that tasted like Kinder Eggs.  I wore my Zooey Deschanel goes to a premiere dress, and then I also wore it last night to our friend's birthday party, oh dear.

This is the outfit I wore during the day yesterday, before it got cold and rainy and before I needed to dig out my winter coat.  It's kind of my half-hearted attempt at menswear-inspired style . . .  Lately I've been wanting to wear more tailored looks and more blazers and things, but I'm way too scared to go all out and wear pants and heel-less shoes.  I just don't feel like myself in them!  So wearing shorts over tights is a baby step for me.  Silly, I know, but do you ever feel like you've pigeon-holed yourself into a fashion corner and you just have to stay there?  There are always a bunch of things I want to change up about my style, and I guess right now it's the mandatory-dress-wearing/cutesy-ness of it!

Today it was cold and back to winter coats and long-sleeved dresses.  We braved the dance club mall to go gift-shopping, and as busy as the place was it did manage to make me excited about the holidays.  I can't wait to take off Wednesday for Thanksgiving with Drew's family, and then I can't wait for Christmas in Tennessee with my family--I want to see Lauren's new puppy!  Plus I get excited about the little things, like putting up a Christmas tree and drinking (spiked!) eggnog, and baking cookies and eating way too many of them.  Tonight I'm going to bake a pumpkin cheesecake.  And maybe watch Silent Sunday!

Estate sale dresses . . .

Before this week I hadn't gone to an estate sale in a while just because they're sort of nerve-wracking events.  For one thing they're hard to wake up for, especially when you know you have to deal with Atlanta traffic (the worst!) and maybe even worse, pushy fellow estate sale shoppers  And once you manage to push your way to the clothes closet you're probably 78% likely to find it stuffed with '80s power suits and '70s maxi dresses.

But this week I didn't have a good enough excuse not to go to the two I found, so I went, and I actually found a couple things!  And it wasn't bad!  They were probably the most pleasant sales I've been to in a long time . . . . the other shoppers were nice and had smiles on their faces, and one of the sale had a big rack of '40s dresses, even if they did turn out to be kind of expensive and not my size.  So instead I found a '50s eyelet dress, a '60s white lace-trimmed dress, and a '60s party dress that I just might keep.  I wore it last night when we had a celebration for Scarlet's birthday and an early one for mine (I think I'm changing my birthday to the 20th this year in honor of her!), also I think I might wear it tonight, too.  It doesn't fit me the best up top (those '50s and early '60s dresses never do!) but it's so pretty that I kind of don't even care.  I think it reminds me of a Zooey Deschanel-goes-to-a-premiere dress.

New this week . . .

1. 1970s wine party dress . . . . . . . . . 2. 1970s cardigan, Villager plaid shirt, mini skirt, and Etienne Aigner satchel

3. Grunge rose print dress . . . . . . . . 4. Embroidered sweater and black tap pants

Back in the store!: 5. 1940s heart pocket dress . . . . . . . . .. 6. 1940s black velvet juniors dress

7. Early '60s Shelton Stroller day dress . . . . . . . . . 8. 1970s Bobbie Brooks knit dress

9.   1960s Bobbie Brooks wool skirt . . . . . . . . .  10.  1970s pink plaid smock dress

11.  1970s brown suede vest . . . . . . . . 12.  1970s rose print dress and '70s stacked heel boots (size 7.5!)

13.  1970s burgandy party dress . . . . . . . . .  14.  1970s grey wool princess coat

Silent Film Inspiration: Mabel Normand!

Photo from The Fashion Spot

Have I ever done a post on Mabel Normand before?  I know I've put her picture up here a bunch of times, just because she's one of my top silent film stars and because she was so photogenic and was famous during my favorite silent film time for clothes (1910s D.W. Griffith era!) so she always seemed to be wearing the white frilly dresses I love.  But I don't think I've ever done a post about just her as an actress, which might be because I've seen so few of her films and couldn't possibly write a post that would do her justice.  Well, I still can't, but I'll write one anyway!  

She was probably one of the first silent film stars I was fascinated with, though I think it was probably the tragic and dramatic elements of her life that made me want to read up on her.  Well, I think I was a morbid teenager.  I was fascinated by the silent era in general just because it was a time so packed with scandals and drug use and mysterious silent film star deaths . . . And Mabel in particular seemed to have been followed by all of the darker aspects of the time.  She had ties to the key players in two of the biggest scandals of the silent era, she was rumored to be a drug addict, and to top it all off she died in her 30s of tuberculosis, which I thought was the most romantic thing to die of.  (I read too many Bronte novels back then!)  Then in college I read this book and it was one of the creepiest biographies I read . . . it made me scared to go to sleep at night!

Photos found here

But you know what the most interesting thing about Mabel is?  The fact that she was so completely opposite of what you'd expect from a silent film star who led a dramatic life, that she was silly and irreverent and fun: the sort of person you'd want to be pals with.  The other night I saw her in Tillie's Punctured Romance, and even though she was playing a villainess she was so likable and cute that you couldn't help but root for her and hope she'd be able to scam the (annoying) ingenue out of everything she was worth.  At a time in film history when it seemed like every other actress was either playing up her own adorableness or playing the vamp Mabel was natural and funny, and I want to believe that she was that way in real life too (I think she was!).  

Photos from AliceJapan and The Fashion Spot

I couldn't find any film clips from Tillie's Punctured Romance, but here's a pretty good set of clips from The Extra Girl:

More Nolan House . . .

Here's a little film Drew made yesterday about our adventures at the Nolan House . . . The song is `Don't Think Twice, It's All Right' by Bob Dylan.  Hope you like it!!