Celebrities, They're Just Like Us!

The next time I'm at a job interview and my interviewer asks what my strengths are, I plan to say, "spotting celebrities on the street." I'm only half-joking because after thinking about it for a minute (fast-thinker!), it shows that I'm an observant person with good memory, attention to detail, and pattern recognition. Also, I'm culturally aware.

I saw Jake Gyllenhaal at Momofoku Noodle Bar the other night. It was really thrilling and it's true, he's really really ridiculously goodlooking. If he weren't already a famous actor I'd say that he should become one because as many people as is humanely possible should see his face. And his hair. He was sitting down so I couldn't see how tall he was, but he seemed to be having a business dinner because he pulled out a script after he finished his pork buns.

A few weeks earlier, I saw Anne Hathaway on Astor Place. It was Saturday at 5 PM and since nobody with a slow-to-moderately active social life has concrete plans in the Saturday early evening time slot, I followed her. To be honest, I recognized her husband first because I thought he was someone I went to college with. Then I noticed that the girl he was with had the same shoes as me (Stan Smiths, but hers were whiter than mine because when you starred as Princess Mia Thermapolis Renaldi Grimaldi whatever of Genovia, you can afford to replace white sneakers as often as you like). Then I looked up and recognized that awkward butt-slightly-out gait and I knew it was her. I walked with them to their destination, Ippudo, which was curious because my sister happened to see them there two years ago. I know what you're thinking, what are the chances that I see the costars of Brokeback Mountain and Love And Other Drugs at ramen places in the East Village in the same month? Pattern recognition, I told you. However, I think the main takeaway should be that Anne Hathaway is just like us: she eats pork-based ramen broth.

On the topic of spotting Anne Hathaway and her various co-stars, I once saw Meryl Streep outside the Delacorte Theater. I was walking past the line of people waiting to enter Shakespeare in the Park, and I said to my friend, "this is the type of place you see Meryl Streep." Who should walk past us less than a minute later? Yah, Miranda Priestly herself, but more in costume as the shrink she played in Prime. This is not a joke and I have a personal reference (available upon request) who can vouch for me.

On a parting note, I recognized a TV actor at an Upper West Side Thai restaurant the other night. It is driving me insane that I don't know his name and can't remember what he was in but I know I've seen him before. I'm going to ruminate over it and will get back to you.

I was going to end the post there but then I remembered why I'm good at spotting celebrities. When I was in 7th grade, my mom and I were walking on West Broadway in SoHo and Mike Myers walked past us carrying a hockey stick (Canadian people really do love hockey). I didn't see him because I was looking at the ground but my mom did and she scolded me for not paying attention to my surroundings. Since then, I've made a conscious effort to stare down every person who walks past me on the street. This has led to many awkward encounters, one Sarah Jessica Parker sighting, and a subway ride with Amy Poehler and her son Archie.

Mom Jeans = Boyfriend Jeans Minus One

For the past two months, I've woken up every Saturday with the same mission: a. eat a bagel with lox, b. find the perfect pair of mom jeans. By perfect, I mean Sisterhood of Traveling Pants made-for-my-body jean except I have no intention of sharing them with anyone. By mom jeans, I mean high-waisted, lightly faded straight leg jeans. I feel like I've written a post on this before, maybe not though, but I do think about these yet-to-be-in-my-possession jeans all. the. time. Since I'm not willing to pay more than $100 for them, I've had a hard time finding them, especially because I'm imagining a pair of Acne ones in my head. I've been to multiple Beacon's Closet locations multiple times (there are only a few, but each is a journey); Housing Works near my work and my apartment, and any other thrift stores/Salvation Army hotspots I can find. I've concluded that as with most pieces of ordinary apparel, you can search far and wide, but you'll always find it at the Gap.

Though the Gap isn't avant garde enough to be selling mom jeans circa now, they do sell a mean boyfriend jean inappropriately named The Sexy Boyfriend. This bothers me for a few reasons. First, the word sexy makes me feel uncomfortable. Second, it's a reminder to single women everywhere that since we don't have boyfriends, we have to buy our own men's jeans--we can't literally 'borrow from the boys.' Wutevs. To be honest, I hadn't read into it that much until I wrote that sentence a second ago. Anyway, I went to the Gap today because I had a vision in my cubicle around 2 PM that I could just buy a pair of boyfriend jeans one size smaller than my usual pair and they'd be the mom jeans of my dreams. Four hours later, I stood in a dressing room with my hands on my hips in pair of snugly mom-ish jeans. Inspired by own clairvoyance and the crooning (?) voice of Flo Rida in my headphones, I went to the cash register and bought them.

Huzzah. Oh yeah. Mission accomplished.

I'd stay around and put together an outfit college and/or proofread this post, but I decided two days ago that Anthony Bourdain is my new role model in the sense that I want to be him, and the first step to doing so is by streaming Parts Unknown on Netflix, so that's where I'm off to.

Before you go, take a moment to appreciate the above celebrity couples that didn't last, and the boyfriend/girlfriend jeans trend that did. Images via Irispancy.

Haim

One of my new favorite things is the band Haim. I had heard their name in and out of conversation over the last several months, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I stumbled upon the music video for The Wire and developed a collective girl crush on the band members/sisters. They have that cool vibe inherent in denizens of subtropical California and the strong independent woman thang going on given their female rocker status.

Even though the middle part has regained its chic reputation, the ladies of Haim give it a boost. The same goes for dipped dyed hair. Their style has the California/French thing of effortless cool, and they're doing great things for ripped jorts and leather jackets, which I find to be hard look to wear because if it's warm enough to wear denim shorts, why would you need a leather jacket. I guess that's how it works in the Valley.

Mourning the Conscious Uncoupling

Celebrity breakups affect me more than they do average person. I remember where I was when I found out that Brad and Jen were splitting up, and I have the image of Brad in his 'TRASH' shirt on the beach of Anguilla stuck in my head as if I were there with them, third-wheeling their breakup vacay. Heidi and Seal was an unexpected celebrity divorce that sent me for a whirl, but you know, I was ambivalent towards the Reese Witherspoon-Ryan Phillipe fallout. I've cried over Justin Timberlake's breakups even though I always knew he and Jessica Biel would get back together. There are two celebrity couples on whom I've spent considerable brain time fearing their demise as a romantic duo: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.

So you can imagine how I felt yesterday evening when I received a text from a friend sharing news of the conscious uncoupling. I shed a few tears, then I checked my email and thought how ironic it was to receive a goop newsletter at such a time. That I was unable to read the note from GP because the site had crashed only added to the catastrophic world-is-over feeling that grappled me as I walked into my apartment furiously texting my friends and trying to re-load goop.com.

I spent my first morning in a world that now lacks the Paltrow-Martin union making a breakup playlist. I'm not sorry that I'm not kidding. The playlist isn't too inventive--it includes the Country Strong soundtrack, Coldplay's greatest/saddest hits, and Gwyneth's rendition of Turning Tables. I read People.com's extensive coverage until I realized that there wasn't much left to report on the matter. And I don't believe any cheating rumors because both are too wholesome for that shiz.

I still can't believe it.

Expect me to jump off a cliff if Ben and Jen ever break up. Also maybe Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves. They do great things for Brazilian-Texan couples.

Celebrity Stalking: Diane Kruger

I feel like this blog has strayed from one of its many roots of seeking outfit inspiration from celebrity culture. This was completely unintentional because there's not much I love more in life than celebrities, and I pride myself in being able to spot them in their natural habitats, aka on the street. I'm status agnostic, meaning that I still get excited every time I see the guy who played Manuelo in So Little Time walking around my neighborhood (thrice and counting). (Observation: if you have to describe a celebrity as "the guy who played so and so," he isn't very noteworthy.)

On that note, I also saw the guy who played Debra Messing's husband on the first season of Smash recently. He was armed with luggage on the C-train, so I seriously wonder if he was headed for the JFK Airtrain, and if so, his acting career might be drying up. Speaking of Smash, I also saw the guy who played Ellis at a movie theater Chelsea, which means I've seen two minor characters from a minor, much-forgotton TV show. Killin' it. Teehee.

I saw Meryl Streep in Central Park and I actively stalked the Jonas Brothers two summers in a row so I might've peaked as far as celebrity spottings go, but then again maybe not because I've yet to see Beyonce.

One of my mediocre sightings includes Diane Kruger on Madison Ave. It was 6 pm on a Sunday, and I was actively running away from someone who I didn't want to see when I was in the sweaty, sunburnt (JK I don't burn) state that one falls into after a two-hour post-beach train ride on MetroNorth. I mention Diane Kruger because she also happens to be one of my #styleicons/girl crushes. She's blonde and petite in real life, so I can't really pull off anything she wears, but I can admire from afar. And she's dating Joshua Jackson, better known as Pacey Witter, so there's that.

Images via JustJared

Purple Lipstick

Blame it on Lorde, but I think we're in the midst of a lipstick shift from red carpet red to full on purple. Though the shift is happening full force in my head, lipstick aficionados are meeting in the middle with a berry trend. I, too, am still stuck somewhere between plum and red thanks to the cheapo lipstick I bought on an impulse at Broadway Discount World a couple of months ago.

Elle posted a berry lipstick themed slideshow earlier today, which led to me scouring Style.com archives and Google image to find an example of the perfectly hued purple. The Fendi Fall 2013 RTW showcased some good purple lipstick (below), but it still isn't purple enough for my imagination. I like Lily Collins' look below, but is that something that those of us who aren't Phil Collins' offspring and one-time Nickelodeon slime time host can pull off?

Grammy Thoughts 2.0

I wrote a premature post dedicated to Beyoncé's hair and Pharrell's hat earlier, but I have a few more musings to air.

• Robin Thicke is going to age well. I'm not mad at him for being Miley's partner-in-twerking or for singing a song and starring in a subsequent music video that is more than a little offensive to women everywhere. What's important is that his dad was in Growing Pains and that he dances really well. I'll never tire of Blurred Lines.

• There were a number of awkward shots of the audience throughout the show, most notably of audience members dancing during Pharrell, Daft Punk and Stevie Wonder's performance. Repeat offenders were Steven Tyler, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. 
• Really looking forward to seeing Steven Tyler's outfit in the Fashion Police section of US Weekly this week. 
• Why wasn't Jared Leto sporting the man bun?

• Ozzie Osbourne should be the star of every Above of the Influence commercial.
• Macklemore and Ryan Lewis win for best suits. Also, is Ryan Lewis a mute?

• I'm kind of over the Beatles. We get it, you rocked once and you still do and we don't a slideshow to prove it. What's one more Grammy, Paul McCartney?
• I really like Lorde, her hair, and her choice of purple make up. The pants she wore during her performance, not so much. 

• Where the eff was Justin Timberlake?

Grammy Hair/Headwear

You guys, we need to talk about two urgent Grammy-related things: Beyoncé's hair and Pharrell's hat.

Beyoncé's hair had all of the ingredients of a perfect lob: it's blunt, naturally curly, and ombre. I think it might replace Meg Ryan's hair in You've Got Mail as the model lob. It kind of has the yield sign thing going on that Mia Thermapolis lamented in her own pre-make over hair in The Princess Diaries, but since it's on Beyoncé's head, it works. It might not for the rest of us. I'm going to try anyway.

Pharrell, meanwhile, showed a whole new side of the chapeau trend. He had two chapeau changes last night, but the one he wore while presenting/accepting awards is worth discussing. I seriously wonder if he apparated into Dumbledore's office and took the Sorting Hat off the wall before coming to the Grammy's. It's hard to tell if the chapeau or the leather Adidas bomber was the focal point for the rest of his outfit, but it doesn't really matter because Pharrell could wear a paper bag and I would a) still worship the ground the he walks on and b) think it looked awesome.

Update: more Grammy thoughts here.

Tilda

Sometimes I'm supremely wow'd by Tilda Swinton, and a picture of her at the Chanel haute couture show yesterday led me to one of those instances. The look is culled from the Chanel pre-fall show. Aren't you just blooowwn away?

A few thoughts:

• Do you think she dyed her hair to match the rest of the outfit? I'd do the same if I were that pale.
• I'm usually vehemently against patterned tops because of their inability to be worn multiple times and in multiple ways, but astral ones are an exception because there's something about stars, like their patriotic partner stripes, that allow them to be worn with almost anything. Versatility, ya know?
• WHITE TIGHTS! I've been waiting to bring back white tights since I last wore them at an easter egg hunt in 1998, and if Tilda is doing it, so am I. Also they're ribbed, so there's that.
• I've been wearing a blanket-as-skirt similar to Tilda's around my house for the past month, and it looks like it's finally time to wear it outside. Mine is tartan wool, but I can probably get a fair isle version at Home Goods. 

Golden Globes Eyewear

Did anyone else notice the prevalence of eyewear at the Golden Globes? There were the usual suspects--Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep and Bono--but there was also a slew of Hollywoodians who clearly opted for heavy frames over contact lenses. Let's go through the roster.

1. Robert Redford and David O. Russell: Not only does Russell look like Redford's Westchester-born and bred cousin, but both wore glasses that shouted "I'm an effing Hollywood intellectual."

Image via LA Times

2. P. Diddy and Bono would be wearing sunglasses indoors, if only to assert their respective rock star/hip hop mogul images amidst a crowd of actors, writers and directors. Neither is wearing transitional frames, so thank god for that. (Related: we could all take some cues on how to wear a beanie from The Edge.)

Image via Vanity Fair

3. Diane Keaton's glasses are a natural addition to the rest of her look, so aren't very noteworthy. And since we can't really talk about Diane Keaton at the Golden Globes without discussing her suit, we should just be thankful that she isn't wearing one of those thick belt-full skirt ensembles from Because I Said So, or her 2004 Golden Globes outfit.

4. Johnny Depp once again proved not only that his looks get better with age, but that a pair of thick frames can make an already gorgeous man ten times more swoon-worthy. Hot teacher alert.

5. Stephanie Beatriz of Brooklyn Nine-Nine was a serious offender in the eyewear category. Compared with Diane Keaton, Beatriz's glasses looked out of place and did nothing for the rest of her outfit. Wow, brutal. Do you think she's trying to be ironic?

Image via Twitter

Tata for now.

Golden Globes Oh La La

I wish I could put into words how much I love awards shows. The mere thought of sitting on my couch and watching actors in impeccably well-fitted suits and actresses in debatably tasteful yet nonetheless glamorous gowns makes me squeal. One of my friends accurately summed up the awards show euphoria that comes over both of us when she declared to be the best version of herself while watching an awards show. Too right.

I started writing notes in my phone at the beginning of the show, but then I went to Twitter, got a little overwhelmed by the hyperactivity of the Twittersphere and started tweeting every celebrity-related musing that came to mind. By the end of the show, I had drafted only a few notes in my phone and a lot of Matt Damon-related Tweets. (Shout out to my sister for favoriting them all.)

From my phone notes:

• Why does Bono still wear those glasses? 
• Glad to see Usher is still relevant and presenting at the Golden Globes
• Going to go to Sephora to ask for Matthew McConaughey's bronzer
• I need to start doing more push ups (Operation Robyn Wright)
• If I get nominated for a Golden Globe, I'm going to plan my walk to the stage ahead of time

Anyway, let's talk about da fahshahn. Gwyneth Paltrow (one half of my all-time favorite celebrity couple) didn't walk the red carpet but her dress is in my top five favorites of the night. (Unrelated, but the camera cut to a shot of Gwyneth opening a bottle of water during the show, #alwaysonacleanse.)

Image via Us Weekly

Another fav was Caitlin Fitzgerald. The color and cut of her dress was a combined 10, and her shoes looked like a really delicious popsicle. Also her hair. Wow. Her blunt lob (in portmanteau speak, that's a blob) is my new hair inspiration, and I'd bring a picture of it to the salon the next time I get a haircut, but my ongoing mission to find the cheapest haircut in New York usually leaves me with a blunt/uneven lob anyway.

Emma Watson, meanwhile, took the whole dress-over-pants look to a new level with her Dior ensemble. The dress was a good color, she rocked the side part low bun combo, and her matching of navy blue shoes with black pants was risky but worth it. I feel like this look could be easily replicated with a pair of J.Crew Minnie pants but I'm not going to be the one to test it out.

Image via MTV/Getty Images

That's all I've got for now. We can talk about Jared Leto, Diane Keaton, and man buns later. Or better yet, IN THE COMMENTS!

Update: There's more HERE!

Inside Llewyn Davis

This blog was initially conceived as a merger between my two interests in fashion and movies, but I feel that I unfairly abandoned the movie aspect long ago. I didn't even write posts commemorating Brad Pitt's 50th birthday or You've Got Mail's 15th anniversary last week, WHO AM I? (Answer: here). As Oscar movies are coming out left and right though, it's time to get crackin' on the reviews.

I woke up Sunday morning on the hungover side of things, and while I intended to go buy Christmas sweaters for various family members, the only place I could find myself at peace from tourists and fellow holiday shoppers was in a movie theater. I opted for Inside Llewyn Davis--I had wanted to see it since I streamed the soundtrack on NPR's website a few months ago, and my unwavering devotion to Justin Timberlake leaves me obligated to see all (most) of his movies.

Anywhooze, it was ah-mah-zing! And I don't even like folk music! JK, I do now. Oscar Isaac should win an Oscar, if only because of all the bad jokes and word plays that will abound post-win (especially on this blog). Carey Mulligan and JT rocked, as did Garrett Hedlund (remember Country Strong? Neither do a lot of people) and John Goodman.

I spent a good portion of the movie fixated on one of Carey Mulligan's vneck sweaters. It's the loose-fitted, boyfriend vneck sweater of my dreams, which makes sense because Justin Timberlake plays her boyfriend (maybe husband?) in the movie. It's in a musky blue tone, a color that shares a spot with burnt orange and burgundy as colors that only look good when worn by actors in 60s era movies. The top half of the sweater is shown below, but can't you tell from the structure of the V how great the rest of it is?

I'd report more on the movie, but I'm not a tough critic and I just got a seltzer maker for Christmas that needs my care/attention. Appliances, the millennial Christmas gift, AMIRITE? Nope.

Two comment-worthy questions for you people to answer: Did you see the movie? Did you get anything good for the holidayze?

Chapeaux

One of my galpals texted me last week to tell me that she bought a new hat--a "John Mayer hat." Luckily I'm in tune with John Mayer's sartorial choices so I knew exactly what she was talking about, and the accompanying picture confirmed that the hat has the power to give its wearer an uncanny resemblance to John Mayer. My lack of milliner terminology leaves me at a loss for the hat's official name, but I've always referred to such hats as chapeaux. In my mind, all chapeaux are hats, but not all hats are chapeaux. Ya know?

I've wanted a hat of the chapeau variety since I watched Seven Years in Tibet on Netflix during one of my excruciatingly long winter breaks in college. I went through a pretty strange phase that year in which I only watched movies that starred a young Brad Pitt in picturesque settings doing outdoorsy things. There are only three of these movies, each of which is no less than 2.5 hours long. I watched them all, cried in them all, watched them again, and quoted them out of context with the off-chance that someone would know what I was talking about. Usually nobody did.

In Seven Years in Tibet, Brad Pitt plays an Austrian mountaineer who, instead of partaking in Nazi activities during World War II, went to Tibet to climb Mount Everest. The best part of the movie is in the first five minutes when the man who broke J. An's heart, wearing a flawless complexion and a chapeau, says in a brutal Austrian accent, "I vant to hike ze Him-ah-lie-ahns." After watching the movie, I tried to insert the quote in public situations, but when you're at a party and you say something like "I vant to hike ze Him-ah-lie-ahns," you remember why you're single. Ouch.

It's mah blog, I can say whuttiwant.

Go buy a chapeau so we can all channel John Mayer and/or Brad Pitt. C'est comme tu veux, beetchez!

Blake Lively and Patterned Pants

I saw the below picture of Blake Lively the other day, and my first thought was how well-styled she looked. Turns out she's wearing a look straight from the Emanuel Ungaro spring 2014 runway show, a discovery that led me down two Pinteresting paths: Fausto Puglisi's show for Emanuel Ungaro in one direction and patterned pants in the other. 

Image via WhoWhatWear

First, the runway. As Serena van der Woodsen/Mrs. Ryan Reynold's outfit would suggest, Emanuel Ungaro's spring 2014 collection featured enough polka dots to send Elle Woods into a tizzy and enough chiffon to please Andre from Project Runway season two (that's an obscure reference, please tell me someone got it). Puglisi paired a few of his sweet sixteen-y bottoms with plain white tees, which is good news for budgetistas who can buy identical ones from the men's section of the Gap. Blake Lively seems to have scored one of the only looks worth imitating though, which is why I spent a good chunk of my extra daylight savings time today scouring Pinterest for patterned pants.

The thing with patterned pants is that the more eccentric their print, the less times you can wear them without being deemed a crazy pant lady. I bought a pair from Mara Hoffman in June whose sheer frivolity is one of the main reasons I started working 9 to 5 a month earlier than planned. ("Well, I suppose I'm not doing anything but spending money on patterned pants," I almost told HR when they asked to push up my start date.) The other thing with patterned pants is that they're addictive. Here's a materialistic thought that will send my mother to her grave: you can never own enough pairs of patterned pants because no two patterns are the same. Something to think about while you take a gander at the patterned pants below and on my Pinterest (!)

(Whoever said Pinterest was useless was seriously disturbed.)

Image via Vogue

Image via Vogue.nl

Image via Stockholm Street Style

Grey. Gardens.

First, go to this website and watch the clip below. Then read the rest of the post.

I saw Grey Gardens for the first time during one of my high school summers--when the most stressful part of my too-humid-to-move days was how to switch between episodes of Dawson's Creek on TBS and The OC/One Tree Hill on Soapnet without missing the plot-heavy segments of each respective teen melodrama. I must have taken a break to scroll through Comcast On Demand movies, where I stumbled upon Grey Gardens, which I immediately purchased because it had eccentric written all over it.

The TV movie, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, is based on the original 1975 documentary of the same name that uncovered the squalid and isolated lives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis' relatives in their East Hampton mansion, Grey Gardens. Once booming socialites, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter--Big Edie and Little Edie--lost their wealth but clung to their house, their material possessions, and their idiosyncrasies. Little Edie also lost her hair to alopecia, thus the headscarf.

The plot of the movie is eh, which is probably due to its being adapted from a somewhat boring documentary, but two points make the movie unbelievably entertaining: the ridiculous and nonsensical things that come out of the characters mouthes in offensively thick New York accents, and the ridiculous and nonsensical things that the characters wear around their truly filthy living quarters.

While it may be a little insensitive to channel a seemingly bald crazy lady, Little Edie's ensembles are too good to throw into an asylum. Pieces that are crucial to channeling Drew Barrymore as Edie include a fur coat and/or a cape, a patterned dress with a turtleneck layered underneath it, and a head scarf. See below.

Joseph fur coat, Dolce & Gabbana cape, Rebecca Taylor dress, J.Crew turtleneck, Givenchy scarf

Grey or gray?

Gray is my favorite color to wear. I own a lot of overlapping styles of gray shirts from both the men's and women's departments, which I often pair with gray jeans to create a slick washed-out groufit. As I'm well versed in the matters of gray clothes, I'd argue that the most practical gray item of clothing one should own is the gray sweatshirt. (Enter Fifty Shades of Gray pun somewhere in this paragraph.)

My sister sent me a message on gchat (the communicative tool of the yopro generation) this morning to tell me that she channelled Michael Carrington from Grease 2 yesterday by wearing a new gray sweatshirt. An obscure reference to default to if only because Danny Zucko wears a gray sweatshirt in the masterpiece that is the first production of Grease.

As far as mixing and matching gris goes though, neither Michael Carrington nor Danny Zucko are the ones to source for style inspiration. Rather, we should take a queue from Sarah Jessica Parker, the leading advocate of artificially straightened hair and my second favorite celebrity to track paparazzi pictures of on the interwebz. I've been taking style notes from photos of SJP walking her children around the West Village since James Wilkie started preschool. Her winter parka was my original inspiration for Malakai, and as long she's wearing Uggs in winter, I'm wearing Uggs in the winter.

Image via JustJared

But back to gray. SJP is starring in Amanda Peet's new off-Broadway play, and a picture of her at the premiere reveals her seamless ability to transition a groutfit from day to night. See comparative notes below.

Exhibit A:

Image via Google

SJP mixes and matches various shades of gray while toting a crocodile bag and herself around the environs of what is presumably Lower Manhattan. The heels add a bit of color and height to the pocket-sized lil' lady. Also note that her lip gloss is poppin'.

Exhibit B:

Image via JustJared

Photo ops call for SJP to add jeweled accoutrements and a black booty to her groutfit, and she remains the chicest lady in the room, though Amanda Peet's turtleneck sweater is the bee's knees (and would look great with a beige trouser.) SJP's pant leg brings up a controversial question to be discussed at a later date: what is the right way to cuff one's jeans?

Now Channeling: Jennifer Garner

A couple of nights ago, I went to my closet to suit myself up for what has become one of my somewhat regular post-dinner trips to my neighborhood Tasti-D-Lite. I was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt with RUN DMC sprawled across the front, an article of clothing that has been the subject much ridicule from my friends who know that my iTunes is strictly stocked with stale Top 40 hits. I would've kept my sweatsuit on, but the sweatpants had given me a serious case of dumpy butt and my sweatshirt was stained with toothpaste.

I changed out of my lounge clothes into a horribly unflattering outfit. I had on a pair of loose green chinos that I bought at Zara when I was studying in Paris and participating in/winning a self-imposed challenge to eat a pastry a day. Given that my current personal dessert menu is comprised of artificially sweetened and flavored yogurt, the pants are huge now. On top, I wore a J.Crew men's sweater that I found in a classroom in college and snatched up after watching it sit unclaimed for two weeks. I also wore Birkenstocks and a Patagonia down vest. If I were a boy, I would've looked awesome.

I decided that my outfit wouldn't be so bad if I pretended to channeling someone. But who? Annette Bening in The Kids Are Alright? Nah. My fantasy boyfriend? Nope.

Aha!

Jennifer Garner, going on errands.

A click-thru of People.com's archives reveals that Jennifer Garner, when she isn't on the red carpet wearing c-c-c-couture, is running errands around Los Angeles wearing kinda basic, kinda non-matching, kinda ugly, but still designer, outfits. Even if her outfits (as evidenced above) don't seem to be put together with any thought (and not in an effortless French kind of way), she rocks it. She makes me want to be a suburban mom in Southern California, especially one who's also the star of my No. 7 favorite romcom, the wife of Ben Affleck, and the ex-wife of Scott Foley (um, Noel).

So, as I walked out the door of Tasti-D-Lite, I tricked myself into thinking that I too was Jennifer Garner, and instead of going home to my parents, I was going home to Ben Affleck. #no.

All images via People.com

The Royals, circa 1989

I was sitting at work yesterday, and either inspired by the ubiquitous Tommy Hilfiger ad or by a fellow commuter on the subway, I had a vision... of plaid trouser shorts.

Image via Style.com

And then I had a thought. (Off tangent, but starting a sentence with "and then I had a thought" has me pretending that I'm Carrie Bradshaw, sitting in my underwear in my rent controlled apartment, comparing men to handbags. Back on tangent.) What did plaid trouser shorts remind me of? I couldn't put my finger on it, but as many a pedophile has done before me, I typed "British school boys" into Google images, and came across the following photo:

Image via Google

Which subsequently reminded me of a picture I had seen in People magazine circa the royal wedding hysteria. Namely, this one:

Image via Google

And upon looking at this picture, I'm convinced that there is no better September outfit than one that vaguely resembles the school uniform of a British royal.

Band of Outsiders Wool Bermuda Shorts, Uniqlo V-Neck Sweater, L.L. Bean Cotton Socks, Marni Patent Leather Loafers, Barbour Bedale Jacket, J. Crew Colorblock Wool Cap