Fashion Forward (Backward?)

In college, Ben & I used to poke fun at a girl that lived in his dorm who wore a skirt over her pants every. single. day. Over jeans, over leggings, over slacks. We once saw her with a jersey material over her sweatpants coming out of the rec center. What I like about that girl is that she just did it. Obviously no one else was wearing a skirt over their jeans every day. Obviously the trend was not catching on. Obviously everyone looked at her funny--especially when she was prancing on the treadmill. But every day she got up and that's how she wanted to look. So she looked that way.

It's admirable, in the very best kind of way. It's also a quality that I definitively lacked as a sixth grader, when I found a white shirt with red sleeves, similar to this, at Value Village. When I wore it to school, all of the boys who were in little leagues made merciless fun of me, asking if I wanted their old shirts from previous practices and years. (I did not.) I never wore the shirt again, even though I loved it and thought it was cute. Whatever. The joke was on everyone else when they popped up in American Eagle a few years later.

What's interesting is that even though I thought Ben's "fashion forward" dorm-mate looked lame, she managed to earn my respect just by, well, doing her, to borrow a phrase from Beach House 2010. This is, in fact, how I choose the fashion bloggers I follow. I don't care much for trendspotters or the women who troll new merchandise--at least not as much as I appreciate a good thrifter who will rock a good wool dress. I mean, I want to buy some gold pants. I don't care if metallic is so in this season. All of this to say: I'm wearing black pants and brown shoes. I can't remember if that's okay or not. (Stacy? Clinton? Help me out here) But I don't really care either way.