Santa Cruz, CA
What you are seeing here is – apart from Kendrick’s graduation – the first time I’ve gotten actually dressed (meaning, selected things from my closet that were things I actually wanted to wear, rather than just opening a box, going “that looks fine and marginally clean” and getting on with it) in about a month.
It was fun.
Because if fashion were land plots, anyplace where jeans without holes in them are basically considered formalwear is clearly where I’d want to stake my flag. California style obviously encompasses a wide range of tastes, but the one unifying factor that I’ve always noticed – and always responded to in a YES, THIS PLEASE AND ALWAYS way – is that it’s so…chilled out. So comfortable. You just really don’t see people teetering down the streets in heels and, like, tailored pantsuits and such (other than on Rodeo Drive, but that’s basically Mars). Rips? Sure. Wrinkles? Whatever; we’ve got better things to do than iron. Like SIT LIKE A VEGETABLE IN THE SUN.
Another thing about California style: it’s weird. And I mean that as the highest compliment – at a toddler amusement park the other day (and let me tell you: these places aren’t generally fashion meccas; more like Bugaboos-and-hand-sanitizer meccas) I saw tattoos and piercings and pattern and fringe and experimentation everywhere I turned…but not in a LOOK AT ME way, exactly; in a “this is what I like and so this is what I’m going to do; deal with it or don’t” way. Or at least that how it seems to me, and has always seemed, every time I’ve lived out here. People just kinda do their thing.
I love it when people just kinda do their thing.
Maybe I just like it here a whole lot.
On Me: Ralph Lauren Tank via TJ Maxx (similar); Elizabeth & James Jeans (similar); Schutz Sandals (similar); Sunday Somewhere Yetti Sunglasses; Urban Outfitters Panama Hat; Ora Delphine Clutch.
