Adellercrombie and Wrigtch - Fun with Catalogs!

One of my favorite activities to share over breakfast with my Mr. Wright is going through the myriad catalogs that his early-twenties (a/k/a adorable toddler) roommate receives. She gets a lot of them and frankly I'm jealous. I love catalogs. When I was a kid, I used to go through them with a pen and comprise entire lives sourced from the photographic materials presented. I was more a fan of the home decor catalogs, but clothing catalogs are pretty fascinating to this day. To me, they are little picture books dedicated to silently selling not the heavily pinned and stylized clothing you are actually putting your credit card down for, but the associated lifestyle. I love the background decor, details like what books they throw into a shoot, what kind of houses, what kind of dogs... And then I love snarking. Because the lifestyle is usually embarrassingly douchey and the clothes - I swear - get uglier and more terrifyingly devoid of style/fashion/etc. each year.

I was so tired of the womyn
(that's foreshadowing by the way)
only liking me for my looks, so I
beat myself with a nerd stick
and so can you!

Still I've learned a lot and think I could really make a go at composing catalogs in the milieu of J. Crew, and American Outfitters and whoever else... the target is "rich person who wants to appear to be a poor thoughtful hipsterish intellectual who is color blind and possibly off her meds, but pretty well read." The great thing about this is that the "disheveled mismatched flaky intellectual (shudder - I hate that word)" thing that these people are putting sooo much effort and money into manufacturing comes naturally to me. It's a miracle when I manage to wake up wearing a matching pair of costume earrings with my olio of cutesy sleep wear layered under men's sweaters and hoodies. These people want to be me (except skinnier, bustier, and with a better line of credit). I really oughta be in catalogs!

I am a fashion god



This is a great modern catalog shot in so many ways. First off, it's in a dirty bathroom and I'm doing something weird (er, quirky,) in it. Granted, I'm smiling, which completely undercuts my claim to hipsterdom, but I feel like the awkward pose makes up for this. Secondly, I'm wearing glasses - it would be better if they were horn rimmed or really big and round. Next, I'm wearing layers and - most importantly - they neither flatter my feminine figure nor match each other at all. Yesterday I was also wearing a teal sweater underneath this ensemble, but I am too busy to recreate perfection for you. Even my robe, which is fairly neutral is just a dirty enough shade of white that it doesn't really go, but I expect that in the reshoot, it would be better served as a dank plaid. Oh and I've got that dweeby hint of overly-intentioned whimsy.  Now, for the clothes.

The shirt will need kind of a fancy name. Some word I can't think of paired with blazer I think. It will be on sale for a very reasonable $69.00. The bottoms, I think are Penguin Palazzo Pants. I'd guess they'll run you about $98) or so. and the coat will be a Terry Trench and cost you $256.


Really, I should be wearing a huge hat for sure, and heavy necklace to go with the blazer, but it's a start that at least I'm wearing some pretty heavy and non-matching earrings


I should also be wearing very tall and thick heels, maybe in a patent leather... or ski boots.

Oh don't worry, I'll have menswear too - my boyfriend is, afterall, a fashion deity in his own right:

So again, we have the messy locale with lots of faded out white in the background. We've got the glasses, again, and his are more rectangular so they have even more cred. It's so "genuine" because we see the piles of clothes on the floor, with the subtly placed tool box and laundry. The pretty boy who is trying to hide his prettiness, because pretty is uncool afterall, under a just-slightly-too-well-manicured facial overgrowth and intentionally messy artsy hair. Then of course, the rolled up jeans, the shirt with bleached on fading and hole-punched tatters. And of course, the whimsical neckwear and the "are you really photographing me?" slightly superior smile/sneer. Granted, he should be wearing cute knit socks and tan work boots, but we'll take this. 

Sadly, I can't afford the printing costs associated with a real catalog, but if you want to purchase my used flannel pajamas or robe, I promise I will set you up with my paypal and ship 'em right out.

For comparison, here are some actual catalog shots and my brief thoughts on them.

From the people who brought you the boyfriend jean: the girlfriend shirt! Is it just me, or does he need a nice chain of pearls to go with that knit? For when you want to attract women by seeming like a sweet and sensitive guy and talk them into a backrub after they unload their man troubles on you. Ridiculous stubble-beard sold separately.

The moral: attractive clean-shaven men of African descent want you to see their socks (see photo above and other photos that I didn't bother posting but which can easily be found for confirmation). I worry that he is standing right on a red X. Is this like in the roadrunner cartoons and he's about to be smashed by an anvil or is there buried treasure?

"So, we were playing around in an old storage closet of Eddie Bauer design samples from the mid-nineties and she threw on this big stuffy sweater that was paired with some khakis and some spanx smoothing pants that were a bit big because they were samples from Lane Bryant... then Clark Kent lent her some glasses and we were in business. Except we needed some ketchupy orange $70 ballet flats! Boooyah. Then the model got cold so one of the crew lent her a coat for the shoot. Perfect!"

She was so confused about whether "Wynter Wonderland" is some kind of feminist spelling (Wynter is PH balanced, just for womyn?) or just poor copy editing that she totally forgot to add pants and just made do with her flannel long underwear.

So she went to a Holiday frat party out in some dude's parent's cabin in the woods... I won't talk about what happened there because it's off-color and possibly illegal. She woke up with a splitting hangover and tons of regret if no clear details, grabbed the decorative hat that frat boy's dad kept on the mantle with the shotgun he never learned to fire but thought was atmospheric, and ran off with her sweater, a bedsheet, and the frat boy's grandmother's bloomers for the walk of shame.

Anyways, I could probably do this all day, but perhaps should leave you before your eyes start bleeding with some of the color combinations that are in vogue at the moment. Ok, just one, but I'm not bothering to make it right-side up:

Trust me, it's matted down a bit in the re-photographing. I have spared you some risk of seizures.

Mr. Bowtie thanks me. And I thank him as well. Him and his glaringly white perfect teeth and bone structure that cannot hide behind a little plaid bowtie or bottle rim glasses. At least for the menfolk, they bothered putting glass in the frames.