ph. by Colin
(vintage silk double breasted blazer, American Apparel bull denim shorts, vintage leopard print belt, random nude fishnets, LD Tuttle boots, Noir/vintage/F21 jewelry)

In beautiful Julian..lately when the weekend hits all I feel like doing is driving far away, doesn’t matter in what direction. I wish Mexico was more of an option but the border just hasn’t been as..um safe lately. So it’s been a while since that’s happened. The fact that most of the town was closed for a reason we never found out and the unreal cutting wind made it feel even more remote..and the fact that we didn’t interact with a single person out there. I found the blazer a while ago at a thrift store..love that it has the boxy oversized cut of any other thrift store blazer but it takes on the softer feel of a top in this cream silk. Also stuck some crystals at the inner corners of my eyes with glue of questionable safety. Who else wants to hang out for a month or so at the barn/trailer compound? There’s even a defunct post office right by it to play in.

(Forever 21 hat, vintage jacket and sweater, generic thermal, Topshop patent leather skinnies, Jeffrey Campbell boots, Grey Ant sunglasses, gifted Soixante Neuf/Planet Blue hammered ring, vintage bag)

The day I found my Topshop over the knee boots. All I can think about when looking at these is how evil the wind was on every other street we turned down.

The second day in Tokyo I got really sick..I guess it was some kind of flu that I got in the airplane but I wasn’t about to let it interfere with my plans to show Colin the strange land that is Akihabara. So I stocked up on cold medicine, aspirin, and eyedrops (I swear I saw lychee ‘flavored’ eyedrops) at the supermarket by our hotel. The cracked out bear felt my pain.

Taking my shiny new drugs with water and coffee.

Cutting through buildings to avoid getting rained on..I guess you can only barely see here but I tricked out this camera with a Balenciaga strap and a BCBG studded attachment. The other camera has a vintage ’70s strap from eBay..I’m not really into that cheesy black branded one that comes in the box..

Holding two drinks in one hand is one of my few talents.

Going the wrong way is fun.

So is taking pictures of anime girls in the train station.

Yeah…

But then again I also like taking pictures of the ground.

Stepping onto the streets..wearing vintage coat (children’s section = very short sleeves), Forever 21 armwarmers, YSL ring, vintage Chanel backpack, vintage scarves, Topshop Unique suspender skirt, Zara henley, Target socks, and Jeffrey Campbell boots. I really like this skirt but the suspenders/garters are hopeless at staying put. I gave up the 500th time they came undone. Shot by Colin of course.

There’s nothing I hate more than these machines with clumsy groping claws. Not once has one retrieved me a stuffed anything. But I had to look cause these ones were really big and complicated.

We won’t talk about what was down those stairs.

Freezing. Soon soba would help.

View from inside the soba place.

A girl advertising a “maid cafe” in a fetching outfit. These are establishments where nerds can experience varying amounts of attention from females, no strings attached..not such a bad arrangement, right? Yukiko filled me in on the finer details.

Her accomplice across the street. Points for Love A Lot being magically attached to her skirt. She and Swift Heart were my favorites.

It’s easy to feel small here.

Even when you’re taller than all the cops. Undone again. And heading back to the hotel to pile on all my clothes for the next adventure.

(photos by me and Colin)

Supposed to be packing right now but I like going through photos more than figuring out what to wear in Tokyo when my grandma explains that the weather is like winter one day and spring the next. One thing is for sure I’m not bringing any of the jackets I wore to death in NY.

Oh and if anyone has recommendations for awesome stores etc. in Tokyo please share..

And the Mexican hot chocolate at 88 Orchard is worth dying for.

xo

ph. by Colin Sokol

(thrifted bustier over RVCA dress, American Apparel socks..thank you AA for sending me packages of weird things every now and then..my favorites are the oddities that never make it to their website, vintage coat, Jessica Simpson platforms)

This coat is without a doubt now the warmest thing I own…with the 25 lb. weight behind it to prove it. Wearing dramatic coats around here is something that I find a sort of strange pleasure in. For one, people seem to be impressed by anything more than a substantial-ish sweatshirt..and even when wearing said dramatic piece yields an ideal body temperature, there are slight undertones of crazy that go along with the whole situation. I find this all very funny apparently.

I get a lot of questions in regards to the “braveness” to dress any way you want to in the public eye..be it the grocery store, school, party, etc…and where I get the confidence to wear this or that. Which is strange to me because I’m really not that out there in my mind…but it’s touching in the most real way to read emails from girls that thought they were too tall to wear platform heels/afraid what their peers would think if they were to dress the way they wanted to/want to add some glamour back into their lives saying that I’ve inspired them to break out of the box in any way. My outlook has always been that people in the streets aren’t dressing to please me, why should I take them into account when dressing myself? Playing with clothes is one of the most basic pleasures in life along with other stupid crap like peeling nail polish off in single sheets, crawling into a sun warmed car, and laughing about nothing and everything. If I were to die tomorrow I would be glad that I wore a slightly inappropriate coat and five inch heels to a deserted train station in the middle of the day. You know what I mean?