Obsessed! Ali and Beyonce -How They're Dressed

First and foremost - a million thanks and hugs to my peeps for following this new blog! :) I appreciate it!

Okay, I normally don't cop so easily to falling prey to guilty-pleasure movies like this, but I have now ordered Obsessed (Idris Elba, Ali Larter, and Beyonce) no fewer than three times on free On-Demand. My lovely friend Nadine, who can get down with any movie, would be proud of me. (I knew an awful boy at Wesleyan who used to get up on his soap-box to spew miserable condescension at any "mainstream" entertainment. Luckily, everybody hates him.)

movies.sulekha.com/.../obsessed/pictures/1.htm

I'd like to say that I was impervious to this film's heavy-handed manipulation of the audience's emotions, that I sniffed with disdain at its thinly-veiled, technicolored mantasy (because what guy wouldn't want these two gals bangin' it out over him?), and that I found the screenplay trite and predictable. After all, this was a movie that last year's 8th graders were planning to see in groups as large as 15. I know, because I confiscated at least 3 phones being used to text evening plans during class. The explanation? "But Miss, Beyonce's gonna fight in that movie, Miss!!!"

But all I can say is that I was totally titillated. I actually pumped my fists during the fight scene, hooting and hollering for all the world like a 12-year-old as Ali delivered a fierce face kick and Beyonce used her head (literally - sick head-butt!) to teach white girl what was up. Plus Elba (sexy) is always great. (He's from television's The Wire, which I highly recommend if you haven't seen it. Great HBO police-crime-drug drama set in Baltimore. There's a whole season about kids who get into the game, how they fall through the cracks, and how they interact with their school system. My talented work mentor taught at a KIPP charter middle school in Baltimore - the show is dead realistic and true to life. A little boy who played a hard-core baby gangster on the show also did a wonderful, thought-provoking play last year at the Hartford Stage called Resurrection, all about men in the African-American community and issues that they face. The Wire itself is killer - incredible.)

Source: http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Movies/M_R/Oa_Oh/Obsessed/1/obsessed3.jpg
Back to Obsessed: Some ideas for us ordinary girls in the workplace grind! Ali's corporate-friendly, put-together warddrobe as psycho-temp temptress Lisa gives cause to laud the movie's stylist. For the work day, my own tastes as a teacher definitely run, like this look, on the more conservative-classic side. Not as sexy, but then I'm no Ali Larter. (Once I made the sad mistake of trotting in to work in some Kate-Moss-esque wannabe rock-get-up and caught my crazy-funky chains on the handle of a door as I was yelling about demerits and chasing down a student who had pushed another kid into the milk cart. Chaos ensued.) Ali's outfits were, I thought, simple, gorgeous and powerfully streamlined. Comfortable enough for the copy room, and sassy enough for the hardcore stalking she did. Most of us don't do that second part so openly. I mean, what is Facebook for? No, I'm kidding. Kind of.

It's hard to go wrong in a crisp, classic palette of blacks, whites, and strong primary colors. In the top frame, Beyonce's getting her hatorade on when meeting her husband's super-cute new temp. You can't see the whole outfit, but Ali's wearing high-waisted, slim black pants cropped at the ankle and some solid black heels. The perfect white button-down, gamine-like black vest (I love any nods to menswear), and sleek, ironed blonde hair come together in a picture of competent decorum. The next frame is my go-to ensemble when I want to feel like I can present myself to the world with confidence: again, a flawless, ironed white button-down, and then the piece de resistance, a beautifully tailored black pencil skirt. Everyone should own one. Nothing could be easier or more classically elegant. It seems obvious, but I so believe in this look. When a girl pays attention to the details and is impeccably groomed, it is perfection. Later, as Lisa starts to feel more comfortable at the scene of her stalking, she dons more body-conscious threads like the vibrant, curve-loving teal sweater at the upper right. Some days, color stands out as its own statement, without the fuss and frill of any accessories whatsover. I was told that if you put something on and don't feel the need for much blush or other adornment, then the hue adores you. Ali's working that concept here.

Beyonce doesn't look too shabby, herself. I'm a fan of the black jersey dress she wears to dinner with Derek (Elba), cinched in Sasha-Fierce style with an uber-wide, just-shiny-enough belt. This wouldn't be a bad choice for work, either. I'm trying to work belts more often into my weekly rotation ... they're smashing.

The focus of this blog is really more about accessible, day-to-day style, but I had to give the ladies props (I'm sure they spend lots of their time in L.A. stressing about my opinion...) for their GORGEOUS red-carpet looks for an opening of their movie. We can all take cues here for the holiday season - nothin' wrong with a skimpy lil' black or white mini, architectural and pure hot, with accordion folds, sweetheart necks, shiny hair, and strappy heels. (You can always make yourself some would-be Louboutins by, as the designer himself did before he got legit, painting the soles with red nail polish. What a pain, but they look *sort of* real ... kind of ... not at all.)

I read once, either in Vogue or Harper's, an ascerbic, cutting, highly entertaining interview with Karl Lagerfeld. He said - and I'm paraphrasing, but the idea is intact - that women should more often than not rock a tight, tiny, spare and ferocious mini - but we must work so that "the legs are flawless." He also feels that an appropriate reaction to the recession is to stop buying new clothes and just intelligently combine your old, as well as to join a health club and work our tubby butts into sculpted works of art.

I don't know that I can fit that bill ... but I'll definitely try to work the combination of sleek and powerful like the girls in Obsessed. But no cat-fights, please. My aim is to be a put-together pacifist. In pumps and a pencil skirt.

xo - MSW

Muses in Malls, Modeling Makeshift Merriment

In my particular neck of the woods, there's a certain mall that we savvy Hartford-area-consumers tend to hit with typical New England, stressed-to-the-max vigor during the holiday season. I worked there for about 4 years when I was in college and grad school, and don't get it twisted, I consumed a staggering amount of Pretzel Time, Sbarro, and Au Bon Pain - in addition to acccumlating a veritable portmanteau of questionable cheap accessories I decided I needed - while wandering this cavernous building on my 30-60 minute breaks.

But as burned-out as I am on wandering the mall, I'm like the proverbial moth to the light. Like many girls on a budget, I'm constantly hitting that shit up for regular H&M, F21, and Gap runs. There's also a Macy's and a Lord and Taylor's that are rich with sweet scores.

Cue Cher (Alicia Silverstone from Clueless) asking contemptuously, "Can we please be more, generic?..." ..But ay, the mall can always yield treasures untold if you go in with a lioness's skill and a narrowed eye. It's how we put it together and swing out with our swagger ... or at least this is what my 8th grade students assure me.

When I first decided to start this blog, the first person I told was my beautiful friend and creative kindred spirit Beth Bannon, an artiste extraordinaire on the verge in the fields of makeup, graphic design, and tattoo / body art. She agreed to help me with Mission: Find Stranger with Great Style, Pt. I. We went trolling through the mall to do some Christmas shopping. We were also, for MSW's sake, trolling for cute girls in killer outfits, feeling vague twinges of guilt at acting on the same urges as those guys from the "My New Haircut" videos ... our creep factor was formidable!

But like most Northeastern shoppers on that frenzied Friday, including ourselves, most shoppers were dressed, ultimately, for comfort. People had piled themselves into snuggly sweats, super-beat Uggs or Target Ugg-knock-offs, pilly leggings, and windbreakers. My boo has a slammin' bod, so she looks amazing in everything, and I had looped on a few superfluous necklaces in an effort to look cute, but in the end, we blended right into the dull, panicked holiday masses. We were getting discouraged. Then, right around our 3rd loop, we were floating through H&M in daze when we saw her: a vision in a totally eclectic ensemble, all disparate elements and nubby-luxe textures and color.

"Should I do it?" I demanded. Beth paused and then nodded gleefully. "Yeah, do it!"

So I rushed up behind this girl (almost tripping over a dress rack and eating cement floor) and let loose some kind of garbled request involving words like "fabulous, blog, brand-new, creepy .. please?.."

"Huh?" Fabulous Girl wrinkles brow and steps back nervously.

Me: "Um, so cute, MetroStyleWatch ... err ... know we're strangers ..."

Fabulous Girl's Friend: "C'mon, Mayuki, do it!"

So with both sets of girlfriends giggling nervously and casting awkward glances at each other, Mayuki graciously agreed to grace this page! (I had an ever-so-brief stint of working in freelance journalism, but I'm really too much of a doofus to do it well. Hence the beauty of a blog.)

Above, here she is in these great cognac-colored, chunky-heeled boots, bottle-violet tights, black short-shorts (I'm fairly certain they're high-waisted, but I really think she would have drawn the line at me peeking under her shirt to check), a textured gray tank, cropped black leather jacket, and a freakin' sweet mustard scarf with some plum patterning. Her hat , though, was definitely the crowning glory - beanie meets beret, full, festive, in some kind of rich black velour. She also had a furry leopard-print handbag which, alas, didn't make it into the frame.

We all called somewhat confused holiday wishes at one another and scampered off with our respective wifeys ... and I was thrilled with the picture. It's not an outfit I would ever think to put together, especially for shopping, and I loved that Mayuki was rocking it in the land of NorthFace and cords. That sense of spotaneous expression and joyful dressing was why I wanted to write this blog in the first place.

Plus ... the holidays are a time for celebration. The rest of us may not have Mayuki's singular flavor or panache, but I'm sure we all share the same joie de vivre. So if you're seeing this, Mayuki, please know you inspired me!

Merry, merry!

xo - MSW

A Ring Thing

.... if Gollum had a blog, what would he blog about?...

source: http://abowlofstupid.com/wp-content/2007/09/gollum-precious.jpg
..... why rings, of course! What better way to celebrate one's own personal style and taste than a favorite ring?What could be more glorious than a celebration of all things ring-related? Elated by finger jewelry: definitely something we have in common, my precious. Friends, do you feel the same?

This is a post I hope to run more often as a feature, and I hope some of you would be willing to share some pictures and stories about your most treasured digital decorations or other joyful jewels. Here, just to get things started, are some of the rings I keep in regular rotation. Some are antique and special, others mass-produced chain knockoffs, but all of them work for my personal life and style.

The two striped rings on the top row (black and white with gold tone) are ForLove 21 finds under $10. They're rounded, solid baubles that liven up a plain ensemble and stand against my legendary clumsiness. (You've likely encountered a girl like me - you know, tripping over her own pointy-toed stilettoes that she loves but can't quite handle, falling *up* the stairs, bashing her hand against the next step, recovering to find that she's broken her necklace with her elbow and dropped her work papers down to the bottom floor, then looking up and seeing her boss smirking with delight and, worse, pity.)

Between those is a huge faux pearl edged by thick columns crusted with hematite crystals, set in sterling silver. It lends a kind of throwback Hepburn opulence to black clothes and a clear manicure. The dark steel-colored flower is a brooch and isn't often broken out, but I see potential, maybe worn in the hair or on the lapel of a blazer.

The next ring is a great find from C'est Magnifique near Washington Square Park in Manhattan. The picture leaves something to be desired ... but it's a fierce piece that begs that question, Are you tough enough?? (Some days I'm definitely not!) It is a super-realistic glass brown eye set in partially oxidized sterling silver with a bulbous little spider curled possessively around it. I believe the shop is a family business, and the gentleman who helped me with the ring really took the time to figure out what the right piece for me might be. In the end, this won out because it reminded me of the Greek allegory of Arachne. This boastful young weaver declared that she could weave better than Athena herself. The goddess of wisdom and innovation challenged the wretched girl to a weaving contest and summarily kicked her booty, using fleece of cloudwool and colors from the sunset. Arachne, struck by shame and terror, hung herself - but Athena took pity on her and gave her new life as a spider, free to weave beautiful webs for all time. The ring and the story always somehow fill me with a creepy, portentous sense that creativity is vital to fulfillment, and that art is crucial to human life. Pretty good reminder on a mundane Monday. Stories of some of the others to come ....

What are some of your most treasured trinkets? As I get everything up and running, I'd love to feature some of your jewels and share stories of how they found their way into - and jazz up - your life.

And Frodo Baggins can just back off.

xo MSW

Take Me Down to Emerald (Paradise) City...

... or jade, forest, hunter ... elegant and pretty.

source: http://www.gossipgirlreport.com/ipgirlreport.com/

Alongside the likes of Victoria Beckham, a friend and fellow English teacher, and one of my super-savvy 13-year-old students, I have become enamored of the CW's hit show Gossip Girl. In this frame, perennially gorgeous, sublimely styled princesses of privilege Blair Waldorf and Serena Van der Woodsen (a.k.a. Leighton Meester and Blake Lively) look lovely in Central Park.

The brilliant concoctions of the show's stylist, Eric Daman, are inumerable and revered by fashionistas. The characters and their influence are ubiquitous, and the show seems to plant subconcious longings in women's minds every time a new episode airs. Weeks later, the sparkling accessory or frock becomes de rigeur on the scene, i.e. Blair's ever-growing headband warddrobe, anything in Jenny's punk-doll aesthetic, and Serena's blinged-out statement necklaces.

What struck me in this scene was the luscious, jewel-toned, eye-catching emerald purses both girls are rocking, each in their own distinctive way. The color is so vibrant, so indicative of life and understated richness.

I'm in love.

This hue pops equally on blondes and brunettes, and I can only imagine how it glows on redheads like my friend Marina. Just a touch elevates a simple outfit to stand-out status, and in leather, it screams chic. Nothing particularly new, but as always, it's the freshness and precision of how it's worn. Like the best star-making colors, it seems to intimate that stashing your goods in a bag like this would instantly brighten (literally) your day.

The first two are Marc Jacobs and the third is Sophia. These are some exemplary ones, but I imagine that a darker hunter shade would look smashing as well.

My hunt for the right emerald purse has been somewhat discouraging. My initial babe-on-a-budget scheme involved painstaking huntress-style tactics at every T.J. Maxx and Marshalls I could hit, but alas, most of my near-misses were slightly muddy hues or overly embellished with ruching and hardware. My feeling is that the young socialites on GG got it right, keeping the styles fairly simple and classic, and letting the hue take center stage. I saw a lovely Marc by Marc Jacobs baby messenger-bag at Nordstrom that just might make the cut if I can concede to the price tag. This might be the right move, though, considering how poor deep hues look in less-than-top-notch quality.

In my pipe dream of emerald glory, I would rock the bag with either a neutral palette or pair it with a pop of primary color, like Blair, and keep the look pretty structured and graphic. And big, chunky heels or boots.


My mother's name is the Mongolian word for green, and I've always associated the color with her and with vivacious energy.

I do believe the Wizard had it right .... What do you think of these beauties?


xo - MSW