Thank you so much Corri McFadden for the shout out on one of Chicago’s most popular morning shows during the segment on Chicago’s top 5 fashion blog! Make sure to check out her other favorites, including The Midwestyle, Glossed & Found, Red Soles Red Wine, and Refinery29 Chicago (although clearly you should already be reading this last one to see exclusive street-style photos by yours truly).
I love so much about these photos of Elizabeth that it almost feels like I’m “ruining the moment” to talk about them. Let’s face it, words will never be able to have that raw resonance that a photograph can. Her natural beauty is the focus of the image, as should be the case with any street-style photograph. Beyond that, there’s an undercurrent of visual coolness permeating the image, although it wasn’t until I was processing them in Lightroom that I realized that this the corner of Milwaukee & Honore made famous by John Cusack in High Fidelity. The subdued color palette in both Elizabeth’s outfit and the background creates an amazing sense of tension, which is unusual when two things are alike in an image.
In fact, I think my favorite element of Elizabeth’s full-body photo is how her outfit precisely matches the colors in the background behind her. The blues in her denim vest are reflected in the Victorian window overhangs, and her ruffled blouse is an earthy shade of pink that practically blends into the brick wall behind her. The asphalt gray jeans need no explanation, nor do the similarities between glasses and windowpanes. Even if I had tried to plan this out, I don’t think there is any way I could have executed it as well. I love the feeling that I’ve captured a precise sliver of time in the universe. Even better when there’s a surrealist element (unknowingly) thrown into the mix.
In honor of the final Total Rewards post in the series, I thought I’d wrap up the way I began; with a dream post. Street-style is all about making fashion accessible and bringing it down to earth. Sometimes, though, you just want to escape into the world where women buy Rodarte dresses at the drop of a hat. The ability to purchase – and wear – exquisite pieces of art is not in and of itself a guarantee of happiness, yet why do so many women (myself included) lust after them? Perhaps its the magic such a garment represents, which is really nothing more than illusion, even for the woman wearing it. One of fashion’s most important powers is to act as a smoke screen, or a philosophers stone, allowing us to conjure up our dreams with something tangible.
Bottom line? In an ideal world, someday I will be lounging around in this incredible dress. Rodarte’s Fall 2008 collection has always been one of my favorites, not least of all because I went through a horror anime phase in high school. Someday, maybe… we can dream, right?
