Some thoughts for the day

This Monday was the start of the 2011 Fall Semester and with sixteen credit hours it is going to be a very full load, but I am not complaining.  Courses if your curious are Women's Literature, Literature 1, Media/Power and Culture, Creative Non-Fiction and Writing Center Tutoring Course plus a four hour week week at the Writing Center.

That job as a tutor is the first real paying job I have had in twenty years and even though it is only four hours a week it is good being back in the workforce again.  Words are really inadequate to describe the feeling after so many years of volunteer work.  It's nothing against volunteering but it is a different animal when your paid. It is also going to hopefully a lot of fun as I get to help people with something I love to do---writing.

My Honors Class is Women's Literature and I am doing this ten page paper on Suffragist Matilda Joselyn Gage which I am very excited about.  I began research into her about four weeks ago now when I was in Banner Elk, North Carolina for the International Wizard of Oz Club Convention.  I will also be doing a small video on the Suffragist Movement.  It is also the first time I am doing anything remotely Oz/Baum related for school but the plan is it will lead to a MUCH bigger project hopefully.

I also spoke with the director of the Honor's Program this week and am seriously thinking of continuing on and getting a Master's Degree but will make a decision closer to graduation in 2013.  I also have started thinking about Spring 2012 classes and have a list started of classes I would like to take.  I would have never thought two years ago that I would be so wrappped up into college life or that I would be doing so well but because I work so hard and focus a lot of my time on it I am doing I feel very well.

Well until sometime later today when I post some fashion stuff,  try to have some fun and I'll see you then.

Jean Paul Gaultier Fall 2011

Gretchen Jones Fall 2011

OK, I get the whole bohemian vibe here but honestly? It looks like a lot of the stuff we saw on Project Runway from Gretchen.  The same lines, the same silhouette's, the same aesthetic and frankly the same jewelry.  My problem and I will admit this upfront it is my problem, is I am not wowed by this, wasn't wowed when she won and I am still not.  Sorry I know my opinion but it is what it is.  Maybe punch in some color, shorten some of the skirts, change the models hair-- something, anything.  There are some really good solid pieces just somehow slightly different.  Your thoughts?

Alexander McQueen Fall 2011

Venexiana Fall 2011

Carlos Miele Fall 2011

Nicholas K---Fall 2011

If you read the post I did on the Perry Ellis Fall 2011 men's wear line then you will appreciate what I am going to say here.  Because when it comes to try to convey to you what I wanted to say Nicholas K has done with the Men's wear portion of this collection.  I am currently in a Draping 2 class at Kent State University,which by the way I love.  But after the third class I sat wondering if draping had been done in men's wear.  At that time I simply did not have an answer.  Thankfully Nicholas K does draping in men's wear and in my opinion he does it beautifully without the finished product being to "feminine".  He achieves what I was trying to say in that Perry Ellis post.  The classic but with some form of twist to it and that I ADORE! Well hopefully there will be more of this kind of thinking in other men's collections.  Until next time I am so glad we had this time together!

Perry Ellis Men's Wear FALL 2011

I have to go on record here and simply say that I do like the simplicity of what this collection is. While a lot of the collection are items that could be from any other designer line, from any other year what I do admire is the timelessness that is this years Perris Ellis Collection. While a fan of the clean, classic, timelessness that can be men's wear I also adore the edgy, the avante garde that can be some men's wear. If only some of the more "classic" designers could get some of that "edginess" and make it relevant to what could be the reinvention of the classic.

I am sure some of you may be scratching your heads at those statements but doesn't it seem to some of you that men's wear can be and normally is a rather "safe" palette of ideas? I am not saying it is right or wrong what I wonder is why is that? Why is it at the appearance level that men's clothing basically is the same ideas over and over again for the last fifty some years? There are those that push the comfort level of men's wear but in my opinion we need more.  Can you imagine Betsy Johnson doing men's wear?  What I wouldn't do to have her design men's wear.

Can it be men are so comfortable with the familiar, the tried, the true that they dare leave all of that comfort to be more forward in their thinking. We need more men to embrace just even the simplest of things---COLOR. That in itself would turn men's wear on its head. Why can't we add elements of women's wear "thoughts/ideas" into men's wear? I am not talking men in dresses but some of the aesthetics's, lines, colors a more gender neutral thinking. Just a thought, but is that thought the demasculination of men over all? Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together.

Tom Brown Menswear Fall 2011

Viviene Westwood Fall Menswear 2011

I adore Viviene Westwood and you know most of these looks wouldn't be all that hard to reproduce--just a simple thought.  May have to try and see what I could come up with on my own like my friend Stacy Thomas does at "Goodwill Huntingg"   http://goodwillhuntingg.blospot.com/