Home Improvement

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How perfect is that today I'm headed back home to Texas for Thanksgiving Break and today is Home Improvement Thursday's here on 85 Dresses! Sometimes, all you need for a little home revamping can be something as simple as a black and white print. While trying to decorate your home or room with art pieces can seem intimidating at times,  a black and white print with either a favorite movie quote (say it with me, everyone : "uch, as if"!) or one by your favorite artist, is simple enough to be a good starting point. I love how the Warhol print above isn't even hung and instead is just balanced against the wall. There are so many options and that is one that doesn't require a lot of commitment by not putting any actual holes into your walls and sort of has a studio-like feel to it to me.

Would you decorate with a print like these? Not gonna lie, I'm really into the Clueless one.

Hope everyone gets home safely for Thanksgiving with all of the snow that we've been having over here! Can't wait to head home tonight and get a heavy dose of southernness. It's about time.

Home Improvement

The Gallery Restaurant at Sketch London

There's no question that pink is a favorite of mine and I'm not picky for where it is. Whether it's fashion or interior design above, this dusty pink is a version that I am particularly fond of. While I never got the chance to visit, in perusing Pinterest for this week's Home Improvement post, and I'll admit, a little London withdrawal, I came across The Gallery Restaurant inside of Sketch--London. The pink is used perfectly by being paired with sort of rose gold chair bases and table top accents and a floor that is an unexpected herringbone pattern in a series of browns, and the fact that the chairs and booth style seating is plush velvet as opposed to a different fabric creates an incredibly luxe and pleasing look to the eye. Not to mention, the almost cartoon-like drawings perfectly aligned on the wall match the playful setting and definitely make me long for the time I get to jump back to London and visit Sketch.

Home Improvement

Being in college and planning on moving to New York City after I graduate in a few years definitely has prepped me for dealing with living in small spaces. In more compact environments, it is important to make use of every nook and cranny, but making sure to still stay true to your sense of style and need for comfort that should be associated with spaces like homes. In an open floor plan, moveable pieces like wall dividers and easily moveable pieces of furniture can help to quickly transform a space with minimal effort and maximum effect. Today's feature for home improvement follows this similar idea. While I'm not sure if this particular wall in the image above is moveable, I began to think how great a moveable gallery style wall would be. While we all know how much I love a well curated gallery wall, they seem so permanent to me because each piece of art has to fit well with the others on the wall--like a puzzle. By creating a similar gallery-stye wall, but on a moveable piece of furniture, you can take the art that you already have worked to gather and arrange, but can create a completely different effect when moved to a different space, possibly sectioning off a new space, as well. After all, however, small spaces provide plenty of room for creativity and experimenting with what works for you.

What do you think of the idea of a moveable gallery-style wall?

Tuesday Shoesday

One of my favorite places to visit while on vacation are the botanical gardens. It's always so quite and peaceful and the many varieties of plants and flowers create such a beautiful setting for fragrant smells and bright colors. These Kate Spade heels remind me of a perfect day strolling through the grounds. With florals being so effortlessly feminine, I like how these are slightly more abstract and create a bit more of a blurred image- easily allowing you to pair them with much more than just a dainty dress.

What do you think of these floral heels? 

Home Improvement

Years ago, when my family lived in our old house, my sister and I had a pink playhouse. While the house itself was every little girls dream, it was an element in the house, a chalkboard wall that my dad painted on, that really made it unique and special. The always-drawing art lover that I was, appreciated the wall as an endless source of creativity and inspiration, and when I came across this dreamy chalkboard wall behind a bathtub I was reminded of the space where so many ideas flowed without too much scrutiny. How dreamy would it be to have a relaxing bath and doodle on the walls? After all, so many of us come up with our best ideas in the shower...why should this be any different?

What do you think of this creative alternative to wallpaper or traditional paint?

-If anyone knows the original source of this image, please let me know-

Gallery Girls

//Dress: Forever 21//Heels: Sam Edelman//Purse: Christian Siriano//Watch: Michael Kors//Ring: H&M//Necklace: From Austin, TX//

When I was in high school I was really interested in pursuing a career in art working in galleries and interacting with artists on a regular basis. While people that are actually a part of the Art world may completely disagree with me, when I put this look together, this specific type of art gallery girl is what I had in mind. When I used to study what these girls would wear that I was so infatuated with, they always had dresses composed of perfect simplicity and easy details that really made them what they were. I am not really fond of hi-low garments, but when it comes to asymmetry, like seen in this dress, I'm all in. The slanted sections of this dress, as well as the dropped sleeve addition on the right really make the piece. Not only did these girls have the best black dresses, but their accessories seemed to be what stole the show. Though their clothes were muted in color, the accessories often made up for it. This Christian Siriano neon chartreuse faux croc bag (similar bag here) is one of my favorites not only for it's shocking color and statement-worthy appearance, but for it's ability to constantly seem to complete outfits by simply adding it to the mix. So while I ended up pursuing a career in the fashion industry instead of in art, I still regularly cite gallery girls and people involved in the art world as a source of inspiration not only in art, but style, as well. 

Art Mod

//Dress: Forever 21// Necklace: From Austin, TX// Ring: H&M//Watch: Michael Kors//Shoes: Target//

When dressing in a hurry, I usually gravitate towards a flared skirt with a blouse or a classic fit-and-flare dress. However, this weekend in a hurry for mother's day brunch, I went straight for a simple mod-like black and white shift. While there isn't much shape to this particular style, it is comfortable enough for a day of festivities, but still put-together and timeless at the same time. We ended up venturing to a new part of Discovery Green in downtown Houston, and found the amazing sculpture, Monument Au Fantome by Jean Dubuffet. With the black, white, red, and cobalt blue of the sculpture, the black and white simple palette of my dress ended up being perfectly complementary.

Dress Up

While I was never particularly stellar at geometry, or mathematics at all, in school, styles in art, fashion, and interiors with geometric influences are some of my main sources of inspiration. I love the literal sharpness of the shapes and the style that they give off, as well. Kelly Wearstler is one of my favorites when it comes to interior design, and her garments definitely follow. Her fall 2013 RTW collection  pulled on my geometric love, as it was a main source of inspiration for her for this collection. I fell in love with this particular dress for it's obvious use of geometric shapes, and it's use of black and white in an untraditional manner. The linear quality of the bodice draws your eye up and down, but also has plenty of detail to focus on, too. 

photo via

Home Improvement

When I came home from my finishing my Sophomore year of college last week, I came home to a literal home improvement. While I was away, my parents had changed our stairs from being covered in an old, grey-ish carpet, to clean hardwood ones. It's amazing what something as simple as going from carpet to wood can do to a part of a space and it got me thinking about alternative stairs, an aspect to some homes that is often neglected--as was ours. In perusing favorite interior sites, I had seen everything from turning parts of the stairs into hide-away storage units, to mirrored stairs for a definite sparkle lover. However, one of the ones that stuck with me was a set of beautifully painted floral stairs (seen above). While to some it may seem unnecessarily decorative, I thought of how unique it might be to instead of having paintings, these stairs were in a perfectly white staircase and the only color came from the steps. There surely is something quite whimsical, but not too quirky about these stairs, and it will definitely make me pay more attention to spaces that are otherwise left unnoticed. 

photo via

Person of Interest: Gia Coppola

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While not often directly associated with fashion and style, it often seems as if the people that are involved in the arts through either fine arts, film, photography, and so on, have the style that most are envious of. In these areas of focus, mostly nothing is taken too seriously and yet, always comes off as effortless and right in all the right ways. Gia Coppola, Francis Ford's granddaughter and Sofia's niece, takes part in all areas of these arts. Graduating from Bard with a photography degree, she has been frequently working on fashion films for labels such as Opening Ceremony, Rodarte, and Wren. She cites herself as "pretty lazy" when it comes to style and wanting to be comfortable, and maybe that's the trick to the ease in the way she wears her clothes. With Gia, most garments are not too restricting and her looks create enough shape to show that she has one, without extremely defining it. In addition to her effortless way of dress, she has the hairstyle that most of the "cool-girls" that I envy have. Never too polished and perfectly tousled, her chin-length bob is one that is constantly saved away for that chance that I would ever take the cut.

What do you think about Gia Coppola's sense of style? 

Person of Interest: Gaia Repossi

Although born into the jewelry business, Repossi, founded by her great grandfather, Gaia Repossi did not always aspire to one day be a part of the company. With her interests leading more towards the fine arts of painting and studies in anthropology, she wasn't particularly interested in fashion. However, in 2007 she became the artistic director for the Repossi jewelry brand. Infusing her love of anthropology and various cultures into her jewelry work, she is inspired by "ethnic silhouettes and tribal adornment with contemporary art." Though she doesn't consider a fashion line as of now, she has done many collaborations in designing jewelry for some of fashion's top designers such as Alexander Wang and Joseph Altuzarra, both for their fall 2011 collections.

Although her interests lie in metals instead of cloth, she understands how to dress incredibly well. Gaia Repossi's sense of style is rather simple and incorporates many masculine references. She has said that her mother told her to "never overdress because it's never going to work." In thinking about the concept of making an outfit "work", one of the main qualifications is making it come across as that you have thrown it on and it just happened to be perfect. With her outfits mostly consisting of solid colors and easy shapes, even in a long sienna colored dress in the far left image above, she never looks overdone.  If never overdressing will result in my outfits appearing like Gaia Repossi styled them, consider it done.

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Home Improvement

When I was younger, I collected everything from quarters from each state to porcelain dolls. Through the years, though, I have grown quite an affinity for collecting and admiring coffee table books. With their typical high cost, my collection (here, here, and here) is still small, but in their nearly endless categories of inspiration from fashion, photography, and art, I see them not only as amazing references for my interests, but as beautiful decorations in themselves. While their name mainly places them on the coffee table, the way that they are displayed in the image above, is not only much more interesting to the eye, but allows for the true beauty of the content and covers of these books to be showcased. Just as artwork can show the owner's personal style, these coffee table books can do just that, as well as provide passages into the owner's interests. On my current dream list: fashion, typography, and a favorite artist.

What are some of your favorite coffee table books? Would you display them like this?

A to Z: Knits

{A few great knits from Cacharel, Paco Robanne, and Rodarte}

Throughout my middle and high school years, knitting as an activity drifted in and out of entertaining. This week in my textiles class we discussed the practice of knitting and crocheting, and I realized how much of an art a great knit really is. While we all appreciate our oversized knits for their warmth and comfort-chic appeal, it is all of the different styles and applications of knits that can be found that is so amazing. From the polished sort of stone-blue look from Cacharel to the incredible open-knit Rodarte dress, knits are a great way to be able to alter an outfit and an interesting play on varieties of textures.

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A to Z: Artists

{Yangyang Pan}

Originally, I was planning on focusing on one specific artist to kick off the first A to Z installation of the new lineup. However, as I was perusing through some of my favorite artists, I realized that it was difficult to try to figure which one to feature. In art, I love colors, pieces that have a sense of whimsy and interest, and am particularly fond of illustrations and type, as well. As different as all of these qualities can seem from each other, this is why today you will see an array of some of my favorites that fill these different qualities. 

{Marcel Dzama}

{Chad Wys}

{Santiago Salvador}

Do you have any favorite artists? How did you come across them? I've come across them through school and (surprisingly) Pinterest. 

I hope everyone is having a lovely Labor Day, also!

Self Portrait

For our final 2D project, we were assigned a self-portrait. In elementary art class, we would cover a mirror with tracing paper and draw our reflections in paint, oil pastels, and colored pencils. However, now that I am in college and in a class with people who all hope to end up somewhere in the art/design world, my days of drawing my reflection like that were over. Throghout the semester, I would constantly proclaim my love for glitter. When stumped with what to do for this project, I kept resorting back to glitter. My teacher would tell the class that if there was something that we really loved to just do it. So do it I did.

On Saturday, my friend Sarah and I gathered our supplies and headed to the art building to start. Originally planning to cover my face in frosting and then arrange pink and blue sprinkles on the top, we had to adjust when the frosting began to melt from my body temperature. As my teacher constantly promoted, YES paste worked the best as a baste and then on top we painted a fabulous, iridescent, confetti glitter that worked wondrously.

Here are how they turned out:

My whole idea behind it, besides my love for glitter was that I wanted to finally just try and do something because I wanted to do it and test it out, instead of just trying to make something that I thought would award me a grade that I wanted. Instead, I decided to take a risk. The glitter on my face and palm was for just something that I loved, and my finger-tips are covered in pink sprinkles because it looks like glitter, but was a way that I was able to incorporate another activity that I love; baking. When finished, I used Illustrator and wrote down words that describe my anxiousness when it comes to figuring out what I want to do a project on, and how people will react and how the picture is fun and positive and the words show my anxiousness and fears.

Overall, I think that it was a really successful project, and in critique I even got a nod from my classmates and teacher. Turns out you can actually do something you love, take a risk, and get praise for it as well.

Thank you Sarah for the help with the pictures.

Finally

With finals projects and exams next week, everything around campus starts to tighten up. Time spent in our beds is lessened and added to time in studio, the library, and on the computer surrounded by countless cups of coffee. We work endlessly to finish projects for this week to then begin them for the next. Tired and worn out, we work to make the best work in time spans that allow for equal attention to be paid to each class. During the few final weeks of the semester...

As having completed countless exams and finals throughout all of my years of schooling, you would think that I would have the perfect recipe to success in not only studying for these exams, but in achieving a grade I am pleased with as well. Well, so far I haven't. However, here are some of the things that help me to not only get me through studying for finals, but in succeeding at them, as well. 

Find a new way to put your cutest loungewear to use, cuddle up in those loose cardigans, oversized t-shirts, and classic leggings to begin the long list of projects and notecards that you have to accomplish before the big day.

Coffee. Every college (art) students "life juice". During finals, there are two uses for coffee. One, the large amount of caffeine is a quick fix to that night before you spent staying up way too late, and two, it is a quick way to just sit down and unwind for a few minutes. While the usual Dunkin' Donuts iced coffees are most popular around the student center here, sometimes just taking a few minutes to unwind with a piping hot cup of joe is good enough to get your mind back into work-mode. 

Do something you truly love. Even though literally everyday I am doing art project after art project after art project, it is a strong passion of mine. During stressful times, like finals, it helps to take a break from assigned art projects and do just simply do the painting, drawing, designing that you love. Only for you.

Lastly, hang out with your girlfriends. In a time of stress and worry, there's nothing better than hanging out with the ladies that know you best, can make you laugh, and know how to cheer you up with nothing better than their being there.

So as we begin to start, work on, and soon finish our final projects and exams, remember to stay calm, take time for yourself, and it'll be done before you know it.

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