Choppy bobs

As soon as the cold weather arrives, I feel desperate for a change. I like to acknowledge mother nature's shifts by getting my haircut. I know it is superficial and trivial and, well, just silly, but a nice haircut makes me feel that I have marked time. This year, I am once again loving the choppy bob. It is a dangerous haircut, though, because it looks great styled and terrible un-styled.  This year I am feeling more "punk-rock" than "hippy"––which is sort of how I felt (style-wise) last year––so I am especially inclined to chop off my hair right about NOW:

Diane Argon's choppy bob, August 2014.

Black and white

On crisp early-fall days, I love the simplicity of black-and-white dressing––black jeans and a white shirt.

I found a great "boyfriend" shirt at Old Navy, which makes more expensive versions seem less significant.

Pair with black jeans. 

I also like it pink, which I would pair with grey jeans for a slightly more feminine feel. At the end of the day, though, I would probably go black-and-white. Either way, this combination is all kinds of east-coast cool. 

Pair with grey jeans (as pictured). Or pair with black for a more punk-rock look.

These shirts are crazy-cool with black or grey jeans. Instant east-coast attitude with little effort––perhaps that's what signals east-coast attitude.  

Find them here:

http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=72087

Platform boots

Kim France just wrote about these boots on her near-perfect blog, Girls of A Certain Age.  And these boots seem near-perfect as well. They match the melancholy feeling that I get at this time of year. Also, a weird sense of desire to be seen.  I don't like summer clothing very much and do not feel confident in my look during the summer. I am a fall person and these are the perfect boots for stomping down city streets and attracting a few glances.

Opening Ceremony perfection. I cannot get enough. 

http://www.saksfifthavenue.com/main/ProductDetail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374306438397&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524446716866&R=848326051654&P_name=Opening+Ceremony&N=306438397&bmUID=kxy1wc.&site_refer=AFF001&mid=13816&siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-7Gl0rZEbV6zssDgOakTGtg&LScreativeid=1&LSlinkid=10&LSoid=342792

Missing NYC

I moved from New York City (really, I was living in Westchester) to upstate New York about a year ago. I love being upstate in the summers where the weather is generally cooler and the atmosphere appropriately laid back. But today, as I was walking around my small town, and finally recognizing the faces of other people who live here (more on this later), I suddenly got a WOOSH of nostalgia for New York City. Sometimes, I miss the crush of people, the sense of anonymity, and long walks. Today I wanted to walk the city streets for hours and just get lost in it all. Something about this cooler temperatures makes me miss New York, or at least the idea of New York.

But, then I look at images like this one and I think, "I'm done."

I wonder if I will ever live there again. And I wonder why New York always seduces me. I have lived there a few times, but I am getting to the age where I really want to settle down.

Platform Birkenstocks

Perhaps I am a bit behind the trend ball here, but I have been seeing some platform Birkenstocks around town as well.  They are amazing. What a great idea since Birkenstocks put you incredibly low to the ground, especially once they are well worn.

Apparently, they sold some version of these at Colette in Paris, but on a far more reasonably scale, you can find them here:

http://www.ashburyskies.com/sixty-seven-indigo-flatform-poolslide/

Funny, that these and the shoes that I posted yesterday make me worry that my days of caring about shoes are over. I mean, maybe this is a good thing, but what it really speaks to is how much more quickly time appears to go, go, go, after a certain age. I used to think of fashion and beauty as a way to mark time, i.e. you buy a new lip color for a new season.  But, frankly, no one I know, myself included has the disposable income for such frivolity, but even if I did, what I am trying to say is that I don't think that the new shoes would in fact mark time, as they once did.  Eras can no longer be fashioned, created, because time just moves too fast now. I can't fully explain this. Perhaps I will come back to it. But if you are a bad-ass twenty-something with money to burn and I eye for the quirky, buy these shoes, and wear them for me! (Maybe what I mean is: when you see a young person a year after you last saw them, they tend to look different. When you see someone say, over thirty-three, a year after you last saw them, they tend to look the same. Does this make any sense?)

Platform Gladiators

I have been seeing these platform gladiators on the 22-year-old set all over town. If I were, say, under 28, I would buy them, too.  They sort of remind me of shoes that I might have bought at Easy Pickins twenty, read that, TWENTY, years ago:

Platform gladiators!

You can probably find them here:

http://easypickins.com