mighty mai

(images via mighty girl)

mai, a friend from my san francisco days and the powerhouse behind the fabulous bay area-based street fashion site fashioni.st has had her style showcased on mighty girl this week, an equally huge bay area blog, as a part of the "mighty closet" series. which is, as far as i can discern, maggie's celebration of the style of women in her life (?).
anyway, all the ladies featured are fabulous, but mai is my favorite, and not just because she's a friend...

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mai is one of the most creative dressers i have ever met. her style is off-the-wall, irreverent, unapologetic, current, futuristic, and retro, all at once. she has an amazing, art-informed eye, and her outfits are like these amazing collages of influences and incredible finds (cheap and not so cheap). to top it all off, she's wickedly intelligent, a loyal, generous friend, and incredibly confident. she's not everyone's cup of tea, especially stylistically, but my my, what a tasty cup of tea she is to those who know her and/or can appreciate her.
mai is an inspiration to me. i miss you mai!
(btw: how friggin amazing is that headband???!!! oh, covet.)

older ladies of the street (and why i love them)

(images via advanced style and au coin de ma rue)

these two ladies popped into my feed reader around the same time...and seeing them, one after the other, warmed my heart and made me smile. these ladies, though advanced in age, clearly have a young spirit residing within them. a penchant for expressing themselves in an artful, daring way that dallies with modernity, and youth without, to my eye, looking like a "mutton dressed as a lamb," as the old (tired) saying goes. they are at once "age appropriate" and pushing the envelope for what's expected of, or typically worn by their demographic (see: that pink hair, those plaid combat boots!!). i hope i look half as good when i find myself at their age...and that i am still expressing my own self with the same attention to detail and clearly apparent joie de vivre that these ladies project. they seem to delight in the act of dressing, perhaps they always have...it would be interesting to see what these women were like in their "younger years".

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on a related note: i am happy that street fashion blogs like advanced style (still) exist, and that some street fashion photographers have a broad focus in the age, gender, race and aesthetic they choose to publish. diversity is good...it keeps life interesting, and the novelty is pleasing to the eye and the brain, no?

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care to share any links to street fashion/fashion blogs which feature/focus on or are written/curated by/for people of "advanced age"? one's that do their work or express themselves with panache? do tell.

blogs i love: the wingtipper

(image via the wingtipper/kate wilson)

recently i had to go through my massive pile of RSS feeds and delete a bunch of feeds...little p.'s getting super mobile and the mister has gone back to working outside the house which = little to no dedicated computer time for me during the day unless the aforementioned little p. blesses me with a nap (never a sure thing). and i also had to put a moratorium on adding any new blogs. sad, sad.
but i had to make an exception for the wingtipper, the adorable blog of london-based illustrator kate wilson. her introductory post defines the blog as such:

"Breathtaking magazine editorials, fashion, even out roaming the streets of London, I hope to fill my sketchbook with everyday inspirations.
My mission is capture them all, be it that perfectly worn in leather bag unselfconsciously slung over the shoulder of a journeying business man to the little jewelled buckle on the shoe of a graceful woman tapping her impatient feet as she waits for her morning coffee."

what that means (as far as i can garner): amazing little detailed fashion drawings of things that move her, and, as shown above, whimsical drawings of herself in dream outfits, coupled with sources for pieces represented, listed in a way that seems reminiscent of the style we use over at wardrobe_remix and other places (natch).
too cute, so different, can't help but make time to keep reading...it makes me wish i could draw better, or hell, find the time to draw again (and GET better)...someday, someday.

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see also: the what i wore today drawings pool, created by gemma correll, & it's accompanying blog...