Sunday Musings (On Stripes, A Corny Outfit, Ewan McGregor and The Golden Globes)

I feel wordy today, so I thought that I would just let myself talk about what occupied my mind the last days, free-wheel style, and see where it goes. Ready?

I had a round of returns to make yesterday and went into the Loft, Gap and H&M only to discover that retailers don't seem to be as striped out as their costumers. The Loft in particular was a stripeland where it was almost impossible to find a not-striped sweater or tee. OK, some of them were really cute but when the striped tops in your collection are approaching a triple digit number, "cute" is not a purchasing criteria anymore. "Sensational", "life-changing", "in desperate need of" are more valid criteria. "Incredibily cheap" is questionable.
I love myself some stripes, but while it has always been refreshing to see stripes appear in the stores in January, it feels really tired this year, probably because they have gone from a seasonal pattern to a all-year-round pattern without solution of continuity. However, what's the alternative? What does feel fresh for spring? It looks like this spring you have two options, if you want to avoid stripes: a bright button or head-to-toe pastel tones. Pastels are not flattering on my skin tone, they wash me out completely, so I am left with the brights. While I love brights, they suffer a little bit from the bright-mania that we have seen at JCrew this past season. Colors like neon azalea and bright flame were incorporated in their Fall and Winter collections, so while they are certainly easier to wear in the warmer months, they don't feel necessarly "new" for spring.
I have to say that I browsed through the January catalog wih a big yawn, but there, on the very last page, something woke up my interest. Something old-fashioned and yes, corny, all of a sudden felt refreshingly new. Wasn't what happened with stripes at the beginning?
I am talking about the Sperry topsiders in the Jcrew custom-made colors, especially the beautiful spearmint. I haven't worn (or bough, for that matter) a pair of boat shoes since 10th grade (in Italy, the equivalent of the Sperries were the Timberlands), but all of a sudden they look more appealing than a new pair of sandals.
Instead of going immediately for the JCrew ones, I looked around and found a pair in a beautiful strawberry pink at endless.com for a mere $38. Endless.com, in case you don't know, has free shipping/free returns and incredibly fast shipping. I ordered Thursday and they were at my door on Friday. Gotta love that. I had to size half down because they were sold-out in my regular size but I had read they they run large so I gave them a try.
The color is beautiful and summery, but at first I didn't look how my feet looked in them when I looked down:

However, I tried them again with a striped dress by H&M, and I really like the beachy vibe:

Do you think that they are cool or corny? If you are interested, you can buy them here (they also have a yellow that looks a lot like the lemon zest currently sold by JCrew).
The H&M dress is from the current collection. It is extremely comfortable and while it isn't very substantial, for the price ($12.95) it holds well its shape. It's an easy dress to throw on on vacation to have breakfast or as a cover-up. I have very few knit dresses and I don't have a striped one (I returned one that I had bought in the summer always at H&M because it wasn't very flattering), so this one is a welcome addition to my resortwear collection, even if not "life-changing". I am wearing a XS.

What was (almost) life-changing was watching Ewan McGregor play in "Beginners" yesterday night. While I moderately liked the movie and couldn't care less for the dying character of the award-nominee Christopher Plummer (I don't like old characters in general, they are just depressing no matter how good the actors) Ewan's performance was very heartfelt and the best part of the movie to me and it just reminded me what a good actor he can be. Okay, he could easily be my ideal man, but besides the looks I like his intensity when he is not playing the Jedi. To be fair, Melanie Laurent has the same intensity and there was real chemistry between the two of them. If you like love stories or to watch people falling in love, this is the movie for you.

Well, it is almost time for the Golden Globes. I am disappointed because I just learned that Ryan Gosling is not going to show up and he is dating Eva Mendez. Really??? Let's hope in bad boy Michael Fassbinder...
I have seen very few of the nominated movies this year (thank you Netflix for not delivering Moneyball) but I am looking forward to it, it is my favorite award show. In fact I am watching the red carpet arrivals while finishing up this post on my iPad and I am having a kick out of it. More tomorrow... Have a great night!