you're going the wrong way

easy street presents itself a rather tantalizing option for lifetime travel - paved shoulders glimmering with the bliss of ignorance. built to blind lest your mind wander, ponder where you've found yourself.

it may be work; paths lined with willows weeping dollar bills, your pockets just big enough to inspire the re-creation of dreams. an aspirational rearrangement in accordance with the plan. the ladder suddenly a steadier climb than the heroic jumps of the dream chaser.

it could be him; clicks of comfort whispering what sounds enough like love. situations commanding, the wedding-washed demanding. somehow convinced, quieting the inkling that perhaps the person's presence is never, will never be large enough to fill the void of what they're not. no fire to stoke in the first place.

it very well may be life; bumping bodies as you breast-stroke the channel of mediocrity, gaining leads where you might, yet never enough to break away. presuming upon a change agent to squat in waiting, to trip you up across your tread. as if the magic of possibility was to seek us out, it's responsibility a direct proposition.

easy street is a path purposeful in its most fundamental appeal: a lack of difficulty. a lack of challenge. to consider it is human, all the moreso after a tough run at things. but it's a useless option. it's our responsibility to avoid this fate, to seek out the shit that challenges us, forces stretch leaps risks tumbles. to run from easy street, frightened of the place it might spit us out. to simply deem it the inexcusable path for pussies. we mean, really.

if you're holding yourself back, get out of the way. if you're scared of change, get ready to kiss its ass. life's gifts are directly proportional to life's chaos: the more you live, the more you live. see you out there.

do it yourself, why don't you

we're kind of obsessing over the latest greatest diy from the (one and only) glamourai, her own recreation of a dress; first deconstructed then improved upon. a chic way to give new life to vintage scarves, to wrap yourself in something so light and luxurious seems the only way to bear this scorching summertime of ours. and the asymmetrical hardware? yes please.

we've long loved the notion of refashioning the pieces sitting stale within our wardrobe, transforming their shapes and their essence to mirror your own. turns out it takes minimal seamstress skills to be able to strategically pin, tuck and cut a brand new life into whatever fashion you've fallen out of step with, whatever's laying idle. budget-friendly, too.

let us know if you ever give this a go, or if you have something better in mind for the class. you know what to do me@brasandranties.com

(image stolen from the glamourai)

have you popped your topshop, cheri?

topshop in toronto is more than old news by now, setting up shop over a month ago in the back of jonathan + olivia as a temperature test for the marketplace. a pre-expansion experiment before setting up permanent digs somewhere round town. we like it. we want it.

we'd just assumed everyone and their milfy mother had made their way downtown by now to check the wares, an edited, ever-evolving collection that has already begun to transition itself fabulously into brasandranties' summer wardrobe, as it were.

to highlight, the shoes at right, a set of heavy, seventies-esque sky-highs that seem to transform themselves into the best shoes ever once upon our feet. it's as if they all but disappear, adding nothing but leggy inches to our vertically-lacking frame. and voila, they instantly became our every day shoe. every. fucking. day.

throughout the racks you'll find on-trend pieces that will find a way to sit as staples amongst what you want to wear right now. in a fortnight (ah the brits) you'll be over them, and that's okay. that's the point. don't expect parity with h&m, in choice nor in price-point. it's more like zara with an edge. it's good. a great addition to the toronto shopping mix.

we'll be posting what we wore soon (we promise, we do). we have a half a dozen ready to rip sitting languidly on our lazy man's memory card. in the meantime, just for funsies, why don't you send us what you wore for once?

the bloggie blahs

thanks for your emails asking after our whereabouts, our chi, whether or not we were dead. we don't even know what's up with the lack of le blog, our writings lately taking on enormously laborious proportions, requiring much more energy than we seem able to give. hey we aint apologizing; the only way to play in this inane and crazy space (at least until you're getting paid) is to just do you. but still, we've gotta get our mojo back.

truth is our creativity seems all but completely on hiatus, like we're just running this rut of rote inspiration. like we've lost touch with the undercurrent. work taking up any clever juice we have to give, shitty weed taking up the rest. change is most certainly in order. so we're packing in, moving up, finding a new space big and bright. a studio, a den, a workshop for writing, working, wearing (living) just a bit more creatively. it's exactly what we need.

despite it we've been having a hell of a summer, perpetual days soaked in rays enough to inspire a fuckload of fun, at the least. and we hope you've been having the same. drop us a word, bird me@brasandranties.com

three's a crowd

it happened as casually as anything, one of last week's warm sticky nights, over the solicitation of a cigarette. the brushing of fingers, habit changing hands. the intimate act of bringing a stranger alight. four eyes meet each other across the flick of fire, then each set subsequently turns, looks directly toward us.

before she said it we could tell exactly what she wanted; could feel her eyes running over our skin, her precursor to much more. there was no dance around it, free from hints, absent of entendres. she leaned in close, breathed both of us in, looked down where our bodies were pushed together. she looked up at him, she looked back down at brasandranties, she smiled out one side of her mouth, and she suggested a menage a trois.

in truth we've never had one, yet to have the opportunity arise, and we weren't about to start that night. frankly we'd always envisioned being the guest, the supporting actress who can slip out when it's over, just part of the fantasy. unscathed from flashbacks of flesh burned into memory. away from any insecurities, arguments that may haunt a couple after having shared. seems a rather messy business, both literal and figurative. but that's just us.

would we share our own man, invite another woman to have him too? we just can't fathom it, most especially this one. seems the jealous sting of a scorpio is one of our fundamental traits. besides, we've never been one to share. he, of course, defaults to us, but would probably jump in should the situation arise. and what guy wouldn't?

the interaction got us wondering, pondering again the differentials between guys and girls, between guys with girls. men have the ability (the biology, the chemistry) to distinguish sex from love, to have the former without the latter. to fuck, no strings attached. and yet women, despite their declarations and best intentions, tend to get the two all tangled up, eventually wrapped tight in our strings of complication, convolution.

what do you think - do you, could you, have you? what happened when you did? confabulate amongst yourselves, or email me@brasandranties.com. let's just say we're curious.

words better left in our journal. oh well.

we're not sure what to make of it, the blogette silence as of late. we just haven't been here, if that makes any sense: physically, emotionally, inspirationally. left in its place is simply disinclination, disheartenment it seems, not for the blog nor for the people but maybe just for the point of it. for the world of it. so we found ourselves clamming closed against a place with a face we don't really like the looks of right now. sorry about that.

we know we can humor, confuse, annoy some people with our tendency to rantie on the state of things. theories on conspiracies, mistrust for mankind, evil enterprise not typically topical within the crowds we tend to run. we suppose we just needed a break, pause, recalibration. yet now the whole notion feels so foreign we can barely blurt it out, let alone blog the fucker.

to be honest we get the vibe that many of you have been feeling a bit off. eclipses, heatwaves, frustrations - attribute it to what you will, but there's no doubt the bad chi's raging. upsets unsettling. it's really a mindfuck if you ponder it: positivity and it's fleeting nature. is it sustainable? is it possible? is it how people really feel? seems to us the state of perpetual happiness is limited to the extremes: the ignorant and the self-enlightened. the rest are just real people, living lives in the grey area in between, trying our damnedest. yet perhaps it's not the actual state (but just the daily quest for it) that eventually leads us to our happy place. or at least, a better place.

funny how easy it is to live in polarity to it though, human propensity easily swung toward brooding, toward concern instead. is it conditioned, the faults of the news, our parents, the g20, pharmaceuticals, high fructose corn syrup? or is it just fucking human?

a rantie

we watched this weekend's siege of our city just a spectator, to both the movements and the mayhem. cocooned in our guilt within canada's paradise, that great north, the two cents of an armchair worthless by all accounts. in truth, being left to witness what went down through a screen gave the whole thing a surreal, manufactured feeling. reminiscent of hollywood, as it were. glimpses of a town familiar, masked in an alien narrative. the backdrop of a made up land.

what's undeniably real is that we returned to a city that feels as different as it's looked these past days. to say otherwise clearly means you have yet to see this, or this, or this. it feels sad. less innocent, less hopeful. it feels traumatized, grim reminders everywhere that it's not as much ours as we'd have liked to think.

all eyes are at once on canada, the quiet force sitting in wait with his magic tricks. oil. water. land. lumber. air. where we see canada's most darling, harper sees big fucking bank. so he takes the world's most powerful figures (figureheads fingerpuppets) to one of our country's most glorious geographies (lest we forget the world just saw the other) to talk shop. then he corrals a few more of 'em downtown (ignoring mayoral recommendations it take place at the ex, which already has a wall) and instead heads straight into the heart of our city. the heart of this country's (strong) economy. cha-ching. showoff.

meanwhile, how to remove those stubborn curiosities, those inquisitive concerns of the world's citizens about what's actually being discussed at this roundtable. what's being dealt on our behalf. how about purposely inciting mass exodus (the potential accounts of the lawyered up) then purposely enticing mass destruction? vandals left to run wild through the streets for 90mins on day one (fires burning, media's trojan horse) justifies the ludicrous 1.2billion dollar spend. getting tough the next day (denying rights, detaining unlawfully, assaulting verbally physically sexually the peaceful people) shows the world we aren't going to play so nice anymore.

along with a call for public inquiry, brasandranties calls for the upgrade of harper's strategist. the whole thing was just for show. public relations. advertising. and transparent, at that. the fiasco was simply a brand repositioning. canada land: timid no longer.

perhaps what the institutions didn't bank on was the force of the collective, the voices involved each with their own turn at the megaphone. timid no longer. we have a feeling stories will keep coming keep coming keep coming. and we want to know: what actually happened here this weekend, and why. and who's fucking canada is this anyway?

(image stolen from jen takes pictures)

ask brasandranties

keep em coming people. we may not be too quick to respond, but we always do so eventually. when the time is just right. pretend it's a carrier pigeon. vintage styles. me@brasandranties.com

brasandranties, hoping you can help. straight up: i checked my boyfriend's phone and saw some highly suspicious behaviour. i'll spare you the details but it's been effectively agreed that i'm getting two-timed. so how to bring it up without seeming the creep? lots of love. (obv) anonymous.

oh dear. well, you seem appropriately convinced of his conniving activities, so we won't waste our blogette breath trying to defend the fool. let's agree to call a spade a schmuck and move along. which is exactly the point: you creeped his phone, he's proactively attempting to bone others, and you're the one who's worried? get your head together. he's breaking deals, dude. your breach of privacy is nothing compared with his breach of promise.

there are very few of us could truthfully, convincingly state that we've never (ever) checked a lover's phone. oh fine, we know it aint right. and experience dictates it should be avoided at all possible costs (you'll drive yourself nuts at every innuendo, trust). but once someone has cause to worry, once their radar's raging, they wind up snooping the berry. it's just a fact of life. you're human. he's a horndog.

tell the truth as to how you conceived your adulterous accusations, then ask him calmly and directly to explain. whatever you do, do not throw the blackberry: at his head or out the window (uh, just trust). be chill as you demand your (deserved) explanation. from that point forward it's up to you to trust your gut: its voice is always a bit louder than love's, fear's. it will probably tell you to dump the dude. so do it. you deserve better. best of luck x brasandranties

the stylings of strangers

we know, we know. we've been rather lame with posting what we wore and we're hearing about it from every direction. patience, pretties. they're in there, laying in wait in the pipeline. waiting to feel inspired in their recreation (ugh, we always forget the night of) and waiting for our camera to be fixed (capless lenses en-bird, bad idea). so we guess you can say the blogette's a bit backed up. lots in our head, less out our fingertips. our roll sure seems mighty lackadaisical these days.

truth be told we find we've taken to this thang as an outlet for our deepest ranties, the things that trouble us the most. to get through them is often a rather exhaustive process: shaping, birthing, mind-gasming our confused feelings on the the matter. that shit aint easy, lest you forget.

we're well aware these creative experiments have taken a (sort of) backseat to our other endeavors: what we wore where we shopped whom lindsay lohan flashed somehow less of a priority in the grander scheme of things. and yet we've also come to miss these meanderings peppered throughout the madness, those whispers (by the ways) within any other kind. so we'll put our back back into it, give the blogette a little extra oomph. we will try our best to post the shit out of it (including lotso what we wore). hold us to it, mmkay?

in the meantime, we suggest you get lost in the style musings of brasandranties' latest blogette hearts: frou frouu. here you'll find a girl with a gorgeous sense of style, that's potentially trumped by her even more glorious pictures. we dare you not to be inspired, moved to trying something new. we know we were.

(image stolen from frou frouu)

do right woman, do right man

at any given point in time, the blogette and its ramblings can be found representative of real life. inspired by instance, conversation, or observation certain seeds just cross our footing, impossible to ignore. their only destiny to manifest rantie. and so it were.

this latest arrived a bit of an undercurrent, the issue (the inspiration) tugging at us like a toddler for attention. first an email query from a woman in love with a man who bores (v bangs) her brains out in the bedroom. next a friend's (horrifyingly matter of fact) declaration of her continued quest for the as-yet unproved orgasm. then this weekend, the drank pontification of a girl who'd chosen companion instead of satisfaction, lacking in lust but fulfilled in spite of it. fulfilled (no doubt) her freudian slip of sadness, but we digress.

all of these women, sexually dissatisfied. underwhelmed. the anticlimax in its most literal form. forgive us, our useless theories, but we can't help but point out the overwhelmingly obvious here. seems to us like the boys aren't trying so hard. something is amiss if the guys are getting off and the girls are not. something broken in the food chain, the power dynamics, the emotional equilibrium between two. you call it biology - we call it the zombie effect of the over-porned. regardless. the boys are getting lazy.

mutual orgasms. an evolving sense of sexuality. a racing state of randy for each other, years in. these things to us are mandatories. anything else simply won't do. simply put: don't marry a dude unless he's a top five lay (we used to say top three but a girl's gotta do her thang, so we make room for those transformative tumbles). in other words, for it to last, you've got to love to make love with him.

if your bedroom's blase, if you're still searching for the mind-blowing, if you've shrugged your shoulders and declared it as just not happening - fuck that shit. this is what we're built to feel, what our bodies are made to do. it's in you, we can promise you that. find your fantasies with your man, or else find a man who can do you right. figure your fingers to do you right yourself. find a fuck buddy, then find another one. explore your sexuality. go deep raw unscripted, without qualms about how you look, how you sound, how you smell. keep the flame alive 24/7, connect it to your womanhood. it's amazing what bad sex can do for the psyche. it's amazing what great sex can do for the soul. accept anything less and you'll come to regret it. it's the only thing that'll be coming, anyway.

something wicked this way comes

they say old habits die hard. patterns tough to break, cycles methodically turning, churning. a power over person, reigning them in.

we've wondered about the mind, its ability to keep us spinning on the same go-round. at times less merry, more masochistic. despite all we know (our lashing life lessons, rough rides) there it tends to go. and go. and go. same shit on a different shit day. more like bad habits die hard.

we humans tend to ignore the truth that we're more than just our minds. that perhaps this curious complex contorted muscle can at times become confused. lead us astray. a gritty playground, sticky with the sins of the self-accusatory. drilling down deep somewhere dark. it's really rather easy to get lost in there.

but isn't it true that our truly transformative moments (those tiny episodes of evolution, those life lessons) seem to happen not in the brain but in the soul? that the mind can actually slow us down. hold us back. keep us from the process.

so how do you ban the brain's bad habits: those easy paths to pattern, synapses steady and familiar with the way you tend to deal. how do you grow beyond destructive proclivities, create compassionate ones in their place? how do you grow up for the sake of you, for the sake of love, for the sake of life?

the perfect shape of an impossible thing

as we flew home last night we found our mind wandering, pondering our closest friends. recently battling tough days (even tougher revelations) it's become to us quite clear: no one is possibly harder on themselves than a woman. work v craft. hobbies v passions. relationships, sometimes for the sake of them. crises and curiosities of fundamental identity. we exist in a vortex, challenges there constant: do more. think more. be more.

the quest for better often (unkindly) extends its reach to the relationship we have with our bodies, so many of us on a perpetual treadmill toward the unattainable. thinner. leaner. perkier. a little more here. a little less there. compares, contrasts (whether against subjects real or fantasy). catty comments purposed, hurled to hurt (the insults of the unimaginative).

only once have we ourself flirted a bit too heavily with the dangerous line, let focus morph to fixation as both our body (and our chi) slowly shrank away. first to go was the boobs: they are real, they are spectacular, and they are a leading indicator of our poundage. the rest of us quickly followed suit, until we all but resembled an eleven year old boy. not. hot.

the rest of the time our weight sits in direct proportion to our happiness: the more we have of one, the more of the other. our contentment inspires a little extra: dates spent dishing delectable, afternoons spent in bed when we should have been on the bosu. the lbs of love, heavy with happiness. hell, our man even asks for more: cultivate our curves, revel in our womanhood.

so what of the discrepancy, men finding feminine what women try maniacally to minimize? where went our raphaelite appreciation, disrupting long-standing definition of a beautiful body? we look around us (sticks for limbs, bones for bosom) and wonder why when where and how the fuck this became the norm? why anything but leaves some girls in despair, worried, shamed.

down with the notion that stick-thin (sick-thin) is desirable. down with your desire to look that way at all. brasandranties chooses to live healthy, live happy, live free from the bullying such bullshit imparts. instead we'll use our blogette to thus-declare: we are fucking beautiful, just as we are. we feel it. we look it. we know it. and we hope you know you're beautiful too.

what we wore

we have officially dubbed this season the summer of romper, now that the much-contentious onesies have made their bi-annual trip full circle. au courant once more, brasandranties finds the one piece a fresh take on summer dress, the inclusion of leg holes magically making modern shapes of which we've grown tired. our recent weekend sojourn south yielded quite a few new numbers, so love it, hate it, hate to love or love to hate: the onesie is the way.

what we wore

last week, to work (hey, some things will never change)

grey silk asymmetrical romper with black lace paneling: madison marcus

blonde drape blazer: aritzia

gold and coral rope necklace: vintage 69

beige strap wedges: zara

once upon a time

what is it about the throes of love (the fervor of a soulful union, the amorous vortex, the interminable pull) that makes this romantic so timid of it? cautious of holding it close. declaring it our own. as if at any moment we could drop to our knees clutching air, sobs turning ashes smutty. as if to believe it would be gone.

we're not normally so cautious, carefree with almost all but love. but our heart's been torn right here before (ravaged, more like). so now we dance along fault lines, tiny tings of fear that the revelry, celebrations, joyous days in the sun might disrupt. flap the butterfly effect.

we're a generation of dreamers, ingrained somewhere deep to quietly ache for the fairy tale. terrified of it when it becomes our own to pen. why does the practical mind take us to a place where we're left sitting skeptic of what many of us spent wistful nights whispering over? imagining. wondering what he was doing at that exact moment in time.

blame the tiger tales of infidelity, loveless legalities, the rate of dissolution, but we can't help but be left a bit of a skeptic. we know it's possible. we know it happens. we've each felt it, had it as our own for a time. but true love that lasts forever? that shit is exceptionally rare (and will not happen to a majority of people reading this blogette). it's not your destiny. it's not your right. not a promise from the universe, gods of fate, aphrodite. it's just a hope. just a dream.

so is the notion archaic? is forever's modernity left to arrangements understandings secrets blind eyes? or is true love truly possible? can it last the battle (no doubt battered, scarred, changed in form) but nonetheless all the better for it? can real love really last?

(thanks to nair and trojan for the sneak peek of sex and the city 2 last night. it obviously inspired. if you want a great (read: scathing) review even better than we'd have done it, check this out)

catwalk for a cause

spring chills turned to summer sweats in a matter of days, fast forwarding toronto sun worshipers right to the thick of the season. the forecast predicts a solid run of 30+, the city clumsily coming along for the ride: blocks of traffic, dense heat dancing off of softening black tar. every other passer-by fanning, exclaiming the sun. shading dogs babies grandmothers, umbrellas feigning parasol. summer is here and we're loving every fucking second of it.

along with the soaring barometer comes soaring hemlines, a miniaturization of what constitutes clothing. along comes our latent taste for beer, suds that make us sneer in the cold somehow all that can quench our dog day desires. and along come the parties, every night a reason to celebrate. to make the most of the fleeting heat. sundays, wednesdays, fridays, brasandranties won't discriminate. it's all in the name of the good time.

the first big bash of this glorious and premature summer is undoubtedly this thursday's strut for a cure, the second annual fashion fete benefitting coast to coast against cancer (a children's cancer organization). with canada's own coco rocha strutting her infamous stuff (and todd lynn's rock and roll wares) down the runway, as well as a performance by dragonette and hosting hooks by the adored jeanne beker, the night promises to be quite the spectacle.

tickets are almost totally sold (we just bought ours this morning) and can be purchased here. get on that shit. 100% of dollars raised goes to improving the survival rate and quality of life for children and their families affected by cancer. can't ask for better than that. see you there!

style stick-up

it's a fashion lover's worst nightmare: the shopping doppelganger. the closet copycat. that girl - that infuriating girl - who buys everything you buy. we had one once, a friend found oft-embezzling our favorite finds, scheming and scheduling their wears. her wares. as our latest pieces became sequentially misappropriated (little else can ruin that new dress rush) so-went our patience: both with her and with having to lie about where we'd bought stuff. and, not before long, so-went our friendship, the stress of pillaged individuality (and lack thereof) evidently too much for either of us to bear.

we couldn't help but be reminded of our stylistic single white female after stumbling on the fashion detector: soon to be released software that will allow random strangers to shoplift the style right off your back. the technology allows major retailers and malls to log inventory into a central identification database. any consumer can then have their browsers and phones scan photos (on websites, on facebook, even snaps of passers-by) for store, stock and price information. style stalking at its finest.

brasandranties tends to offer up this information rather willingly (not so much lately, since our lightbulbs burnt out and we're too lazy and/or underwhelmed for canadian tire) as do the copious style diaries on the daily, but we must admit there's something absurdly creepy about involuntarily providing it. not to mention twit-piccing the girl beside you because you like her ring. purchasing a top from h&m should not render us a mobile h&m billboard, a walking advertorial for their summer promo prices. and yet this seems to be the inevitable evolution of zuckerburg's vision - his pot of gold at the end of this information rainbow we've all (mindlessly) shared. offered up on a silver platter. big brother is alive and well, and he wants to know where you got those shoes.

how do you wear it?

longtime readers and newfound blogette enthusiasts should by now be well-aware of brasandranties' love for all things boob: the bubbies, breasticles, big tiddies existing as inimitable purveyors of all things feminine. at once both safe and sensual, let's just say the boobs of the world are pretty important to us.

which is why we're thrilled to throw our support once again to the fashion targets breast cancer campaign, with proceeds benefiting rethink breast cancer. available across the country via joe fresh style, this year's tee retails for $12 and is the fifth in our own collection (but the first we've hacked into a crop top). they've made this year a little bit sweeter by adding a complementary berry polish into the mix (part of their newly-launched polish line) also benefitting the cause.

so how do you wear yours? turns out joe wants to know, and brasandranties does too. they're inviting all of us to snap up a tee and submit our steez here. winner receives a trip for two to toronto fashion week (and quite the spending spree of joe fresh wares). check the site for more details. so get involved, get a tee, show love for the girls and good luck!

fashion targets tee via joe fresh

the final round

the first few happen as your back is turned, attention focused inward, only awarded to the immediate vicinity. work and play. parties people men meaning. there's hardly any room in the every day for the idea of it: commitment. lives tied together in a meaty legal knot. white wedding.

when those first few friends take the plunge it's rather simple to dismiss: outliers, odd ones, the obvious mistakes. a forced processing of forever. the concept remains an alien notion, firmly rooted in the foreign terrain of adulthood. a distant desire only your future oat-sewed self could fathom. one day.

then the nuptial phenomenon begins to spread its reach, tending towards tandem after the first one falls. newly-acquired husbands houses and honeymoons (don't even get us started on the birthing process). and yet our closest counterparts remain without attachment, instead finding themselves up against that final round. the precursor to said domino effect. the storms before the storm. breakin up.

it isn't easy - never is: no matter, no circumstance - but there's enormous relief in letting go of what's wrong. in stopping a mistake before it becomes your mistake. reclaiming hold of the future. these are our last heartbreaks before our biggest bets. a widespread inclination to look close at our companions, envision that (terrifying) state of forever and determine whether this is the face we want beside us. whether this person is enough.

none of us know what's waiting in store. where we'll be or how we'll feel. but keep eyes open, ears too (soul always). question whether your partner actually makes you happy. whether you like who you are in their presence. whether you're getting all that you give. don't spend a life lonely for fear of loneliness now; days of would-be freedom wasted, spent convincing compatibility as they slip from your fingers. just forget the fucker, and go forth knowing you're one step closer to peace.

only boring people get bored

as we cavort our way round town - course through the veins of toronto, its days nights parties its people - it really never fails to amaze us. those decreasing degrees of separation / interconnectivity / incest as we all attempt to live lives in parallel. in time with each other.

some can be found bemoaning it: every one knows every one. of course it's not true (for how could it be) and yet the search for common ground, for context is inevitably abbreviated. a short-lived inquiry. anticlimax. everyone kinda does know everyone.

the truth sits at the core of what we groan about this town, while also being exactly what makes us enjoy it so. look closely at the faces around you. friend. foe. frienemy. take them in. because they sure as shit aren't going anywhere. they'll just get older. more weathered. all the wiser. this is your life, man.

it doesn't mean we have to like each other. it needn't mean we get along (where's the fun in that). but it means we must be gracious. respectful of other opinion, philosophies. allow each other the room to exist and experiment, to realize potential. to create value for the world however we've been blessed.

brasandranties is guilty of not always having been so-inclined. oh there's more than a few grudges with our stamp on it. but we're each on our own journey, just all at different points along the way. go forth. do your thang. conquer. inspire others to do similar. props to those who already are (you know, in case we haven't mentioned)

blogette fave

women dress alike all over the world - they dress to be annoying to other women (elsa schiaparelli)

so-quoted a friend the book recently, the words for whatever reason sounding resonance. humor. perhaps appreciation for the simplistic explanations of a woman, her dress.

whether or not she's right we'll leave to you to debate. confabulate. while its never in fact been a personal style motivator, annoying les autres seems just an unfortunate (unnecessary) side effect of our greater attempts. but that's just us. we like to keep our steez wavering on the delicate line between sex and class (trust: the two are not mutually exclusive, despite what yo mama told you). and when in doubt we (of course) default to the former. it's more fun over there anyway.

and yet (slooty style predilections aside) we seem to be scoring a rather healthy tally when measuring our wardrobe against our latest blogette fave: the man repeller.

the man repeller blogs what we already know: that often our men have no fucking clue why we're wearing what we're wearing. they know it must be now, assume they'd see similar if they cracked a mag, and yet they still don't get it. sometimes they even hate it. we've experienced unforgettable looks (curiosity, bewilderment, confusion) from ours at the sight of: anything drop-crotch, oversized shoulders and our silk crop-top cape. funny beasts, aren't they?

how about you? yes of course you dress for yourself (who doesn't) but where do you land on the spectrum? do you mind what your man finds fugly? repellent? or do you rock out your hammer pants, your top-knots, your jumpsuits regardless? does fashion trump your sex appeal?