catching up: my BUST 'looks' columns of the last several months

catching up on several months worth of press...so, so behind. but like i say all the damn time these days/months/years, better late than never. :P
seen above: interviews in my LOOKS column in BUST magazine: starring, in order of publication, mai le of fashionist, debra rapoport (of advanced style fame), and elsie flannigan of red velvet art. brilliant gals, all.

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i frickin' LOVE doing this column, people. i mean, look, i get to pick a gorgeous, smart woman and then chat her up for a bit up about matters of style, life, and what she's wearing (in the photo in question). it's fun! it's mind-blowingly interesting (to me anyway!). and when it hits the stands, she gets to shine, lookin' fabulous on the pages of a nationally (internationally?) distributed mag. it makes her feel good, and i feel good about that. and hopefully people like reading about them and getting into their stylish heads. win-win-WIN!(?)

totally totin': maptotes

(images via maptote)

while i was checking out at manhattan's kinokuniya bookstore this past weekend, i stumbled across a little display of bags from (brooklyn's) maptote. lookin' at 'em, it's so clear that they vibe with that whole current design trend that's all about cities and maps and showing some city love/pride, no?
lately i've been aching to be back in NYC! i felt moved to show a little love to my favorite locale, so i snagged a NY maptote for myself! it's officially my favorite new bag: it's this perfect middling shade of denim, and the ink is poppy pencil yellow. cavernous enough to carry the essentials and maybe a little more. yay yayness!

memory (like an elephant): spray painted gold boots

(image via this ebay listing)

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i seem to have this crazy long memory for interesting things i've spotted on others. i'll see someone wearing something in (what i feel is) an inspired way, make a mental note of it, and often find myself thinking about that person and that cool item of theirs, sometimes for years and years, oftentimes almost obsessively.
back in the mid-2000s, pete and i were out in san francisco, and were grabbing a drink at a local coffeehouse. said coffeehouse was in the mission, if the (faded) memory serves. i sat down to take a swig out of my juice, looked up and toward the cashier stand, and spotted a stylin', gray-haired, middle-age woman in a vintage-flavored, thrifty outfit, most of the details of which are by now quite hazy.
however, i remember one detail of her outfit quite distinctly: she was wearing a pair of nicely beat-up leather cowboy boots, that were spray-painted in a rich metallic gold. the paint job was a bit imperfect and/or a bit worn. i instantly fell in love...with her boots! gold!! old! awesome!
...i haven't stopped thinking about them since.
i've been meaning to replicate said boots (using an old pair of secondhand green leather justin's i've got laying around), but haven't gotten around to it...yet. maybe soon. maybe this post will provide the impetus i need to get going on that long fallow project...

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two things...
one: have you ever spray painted your shoes/any shoes/an accessory/leather goods? what were the results? any tips on how to successfully "tag" your taps?
two: i wanna know about you! do you ever obsess over the details in others get-ups? do you have a memory of something you peeped on someone else stuck in your head, even still? were you moved to find or replicate that item or that person's look?
or am i the only elephant?