What you really need to ask yourself is: do I look like a power lesbian summering in Nantucket? The answer should be, “Yes.”

I feel like I could totally life-partner with Rachel Maddow in this outfit. The black pant, rather than a lighter-colored chino, makes it a little more boardroom appropriate and would nicely complement Maddow’s hair. And you know Ellen would wear the balls out of a pair of Chuck Taylors with her summer suiting, a look she probably made cool back in college, well before Jeremy Piven & Co. hopped on the bandwagon and ruined everything.

Up top we’ve got a pink, seersucker shirt from J.Crew that I’m literally wearing with a Band of Outsiders repp tie with boats on it, wHaT!? Let me explain: I was in J.Crew one day because I know they make XS’s, looking for a basic white or dark navy oxford and striking out. Then I saw this on the rack and thought it couldn’t hurt to venture out of my comfort zone. #TakingChances ( <– Celine Dion reference, anyone?) It fits really well and looks even better wrinkled than ironed out, which means it’s super easy to dress up or dress down. (This is it dressed down.)

And then we have these boss-ass (are we hyphenating that now?) Warby Parker frames. Ugh, aren’t they so sick? Someone at work said I looked very “weekend in the Hamptons” in them, so basically she called me an asshole…but a hot one!

Shot by McArthur in Washington Square Park, a great place for:

• Watching hot men do things
• Instagramming iced coffee
• Instagramming a cute picnic
• Taking selfies
• Being like, “this is like, my favorite park.”

P.S. Here’s a beauty tip – don’t wear a tinted moisturizer on the back of your neck (it had SPF in it and I didn’t want to burn!) It will ruin the collar of your shirt and just generally be disgusting to look at.

You can also have an eyelash extensions. Extensions can make a huge difference. You’ll get more lasting results if you work with Honolulu eyelash extension professionals. If you’re not happy with the way that your natural lashes look, why not give this option a try?

The other week, I stopped into one of my favorite new-to-me cafés in the city, Lost Weekend, for a quick coffee and also to take pictures of myself getting said coffee. #META. More #META? This is me, asking myself five questions about the Montauk-meets-the-LES establishment:

Vintage wool shirt from the Brooklyn Flea

This week’s post is all about layering, because it’s winter and if you don’t have on lots of layers you will die. #Science. The third installment in our Coat Tales series finds me moving on from butch and glamorous and taking trad for a spin with this vintage wool shirt. It’s super thick and has some wonderful details like that natty back vent. The second incarnation of buffalo plaid we’ve seen on the blog this season (the first being these pants), it’s about a size too big – perfect for layering over a sweater and sportcoat (and chambray shirt and tee). Plus, it’s a great pop of color, no? I paired it with these thrifted Boy Scouts trousers I found the other week – a total steal at $7! (That’s the second pair of Boy Scouts pants I’ve had lots of luck with…is this a good thing? Did I mention I’m twenty-five?) Also, can we talk about how they’re stylish cargo pants? They might as well be made out of unicorn, people.

The hat is a vintage Greek fisherman’s cap from What Goes Around Comes Around at Astor Place. These babies have been super popular for winter. The shape references a pageboy cap, a style recently featured on The Sartorialist so you know it’s #hotrightnow. I feel like that last picture could be from the 1920’s – I’m ready to toss my hat and celebrate our troops coming home, y’all! How do you layer in winter?

Click through to shop the look!

And finally, here’s a second round of awesome photos by awesome photographers you should know. The above three are what I’m calling, “obscure object portraits” by Clemens Fantur. The people in them seem to be a little bit invisible, I’d say…quite beautiful, no?

Here we have some realllly wicked fashion photography by Sasha Kurmaz (that first image links back to the set these are from). I just think these are so inspired…quirky and a little bit unhinged.

This little section I’m calling, “modern still lifes.” First up is a group of silver spray-painted fruits (#winning) by Jay Bing, then a pair of jeans and a skateboard and plant by Ada Hamza, whose work with shadows and negative space is really interesting.

And last, but not least, we have hot guys in nature. Brought to you, in order of appearance, by Jeff Luker, Carles Rodrigoand Harley Weir.

Be sure to click through to view people’s work on Flickr and all names link back to a website or blog/Tumblr. On a side note, if I’ve featured your work here and you’d like it removed, grab my email from the “About” section and let me know!

Time for some makeover madness! I’ve synergized my orangespiration with my decorating-with-candles mania here, and crossed it with my overarching love for all things shiny to bring you this post. It all started with the sidetable, which I got on sale for $15 at Urban Outfitters. (It was originally $148!) It’s color was something akin to tapioca, which is just so not hot right now – crisis. I picked up a can of spraypaint at my local hardware store and set about revamping this little number in a delicious shade of tangerine, the Pantone “Color of the Year.” (View some more tangerine-spiration at Apartment Therapy.)

Considering the fact that I’ve not only done this before, but photodocumented the entire process, you would think I couldn’t screw up…so I even sort of surprised myself when I forgot to prime the thing. It is, in the words of Cher Horowitz, a Monet now – pretty from a distance, but a bit of a mess up close.

In other life lessons: this candle. I bought it because it’s just soooo cute, but then, you know what? I don’t think I love the way it smells so much and sometimes I think I can’t even smell it at all! Oh, well, I still like the look of it. In this post: flowers from Hedge, candle from O’Suzannah, Foo dog from the Consignment Shop on the downtown mall.
Click through for the “before” shot!

Designer Joy Gryson launched her eponymous accessories line in 2006 after an impressive corporate career that began at Liz Claiborne. There, as assistant to the Vice President of design and development, she cut her teeth in a category that would become crucial to the solvency of many a fashion house; she was then on to Coach, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs, all the while honing her eye for smart and desirable design. I sat down with Gryson to talk about her experiences in the industry and her three accessories lines, Gryson, Olivia Harris, and IIIBeCa.

To do justice to Gryson’s words, I enlisted the gorgeous Lauren from The Marcy Stop to model designs from IIIBeCa and Olivia Harris. I styled them with vintage from Amy Yee’s bitchin’ online boutique, Maeven, as Gryson made clear in our conversation the importance of timeless appeal. Enjoy!

A New York City native (she grew up on the border of Queens and Long Island), Gryson went to F.I.T. for merchandising and marketing, but knew her passion lay in the creative process. “I didn’t want to sit there and do numbers,” she says.

She launched IIIBeCa, the youngest of her three accessories lines, in the fall of last year as a means to give back to her local community. Sales from IIIBeCa support three charities she and her husband and business partner, Peter, care deeply about: Family Focus Adoption Services, a non-profit Gryson’s mother co-founded; Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital; and the 9/11 memorial.

The look of the line was inspired by Gryson’s first designer handbag, by Il Bisonte. “It was that yummy, grainy leather that you know is going to wear so well over decades. You still see all of these vintage ones today—they really are completely timeless.” Despite its accessible price point, the IIIBeCa line is no stranger to the level of detail typically associated with a more expensive product. Made of vegetable-tanned Vachetta leather, the bag’s interiors are left raw—taking minimalism to the max. A drawstring lining is included for customers who prefer something a little less rough. “I’m very detail oriented, that’s the Virgo-ness in me,” Gryson says with a laugh. “I’ve designed for people who are at a couture level and I’ve also designed for people who sell bags at Target, so I understand that you can make a great bag no matter what the price point is.”

When Joy and Peter first launched Gryson their most eager customers were not so close to home. The Japanese market was one of the first to express a lot of interest in Gryson’s designs, notably for their unisex appeal. “I saw a lot of Japanese men wearing Gryson bags,” she remembers. “Takashi Murakami actually ordered a Gryson bag for himself, which was a big deal for me! So I definitely feel like there’s that masculine/feminine balance throughout the collection…in China, Korea and Japan, it’s amazing—in those three countries, the men’s market is almost as big as the women’s market.”

So how does a mom-and-pop operation get to be Big in Japan? 1) Know the industry ropes and 2) Foster the right business relationships over the course of almost two decades. “I worked 24/7,” says Gryson of the early days of her career. “At those types of corporations, everyone did.” Nowadays, she and Peter have more time to focus on their family and pursue that ever elusive work/life balance—something of a challenge when you’re the face, name and brains behind an expanding business. “The economy has been such a rollercoaster [ever since we launched]…the fact that we’re even still alive really says a lot. It’s all about being versatile and being able to maneuver. You have to be creative, not just in designing things, but in how you handle your business.”

And for a brand with only one brick-and-mortar outlet (the bags retail primarily in department stores), how important is the function of e-commerce?  Gryson stresses that online sales are crucial to a diversified growth strategy. “Financially it makes more sense for the customer to come to our site because we’re going to make more money—the markup is simply different. But it’s also important for people who don’t know our brand to be able to go to a website like Net-A-Porter and discover us [in the context of their favorite labels.] You’re going to get more potential customers through a website like that because they have a bigger outreach. It’s important to have both outlets and to be in balance. You never want to completely write off any venue, because it’s the whole process that’s important.”

And a few last words of wisdom: “No matter who you work for, whether it’s for yourself or for someone else, it’s about doing the best that you can. I think that’s part of what’s made us successful. So we just keep on going, you know?”

A big thank you to Joy for sitting down and chatting with me, and to Lauren and Amy for helping me tell this story a little better. Shot on location in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and at Le Gamin restaurant. Don’t forget you can shop these looks!

BAM! That’s how you do a jump shot, ya’ll – nothing but rim! (Rim is like the distance between your feet and the ground, right? Ungh, beskitball.) Today’s post is eXtra special, and not least because the title references our dearly departed 30 Rock – it’s my first fashion giveaway! But we’ll get to that after you’ve finished reading all about the hot vintage nana I’m wearing. First up: the coat. It’s a turn-of-the-century duster, a garment worn by men and women “to protect their clothes when riding in open motorcars” that I got when shooting at the Manhattan Vintage Show. It’s a heavy linen and, as the pictures below attest, the detailing is impeccable. The pockets have little envelope flaps and the sleeves have these beautifully chunky cuffs, plus it drapes like no other. I feel very Comme des Garçons-ish in it, with a whiff of unfussy Margiela brilliance.

The scarf, while not vintage, is a very gorgeous silk infinity scarf from French brand Meilleur Ami. I like the way it adds a pop of color near my face, so you can really appreciate the cerulean hues in my eyes. Pairing the coat with my boyfriend jeans  is an easy way to transition something over a hundred years old into a modern wardrobe – just say it’s grunge. The shoes are my vintage Dr. Martens, and the supercute striped socks are the special item YOu CouLd WIN! Scroll down for details…

GIVEAWAY!Nigel Knox was nice enough to get in touch with me about their product line, quality socks with charm and spunk. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had trouble finding socks that have a lot of personality and are equally well made. The most fun pairs I’ve collected over the years have by now sadly deteriorated, but I look forward to many a happy morning padding around the apartment in my Nigel Knox socks. The line is made in Italy in a variety of high-end materials; the pair I’m wearing here is merino wool. Nigel Knox and I are inviting you to take your pick of another “stryped” style, the Barnaby, in whatever colorway you’d like!

Here’s how to enter: “Like” *fruitpunch on Facebook  and then leave a comment below – it’s as easy as that! A winner will be picked randomly and announced via Facebook (and mentioned here, in the comments.) Feel free to share this in any way you can think of – the more, the merrier!

Y’all didn’t think I’d let Girls Week come to a close without actually featuring the wit and wisdom of an actual, real-live girl did you? Of course not! So I Googled, “girl” and compiled some feedback on being a woman from a mash-up of Wikipedia entries probably written by women. Joke! I asked one of my best friends from college, Nicole, if she would mind contributing a piece about what it means to be a girl. Considering the pointed use of the term as the title of grown woman Lena Dunham’s hit show, and further considering that show’s second season debut as the impetus for this entire themed week, I feel it’s only fitting to analyze the conditions of its usage and ask what it feels like to be a girl vs. a woman (in a man’s world?) Graphic obviously from Texts From Hillary. P.S. Hillary 2016.

About four or five years ago, a male friend told me to turn on my TV because there was a girl talking about the presidential election. I fumbled for the remote. I’d seen a few adorable videos with children exploring their early political interests and singing parody songs about the election, so I was excited to hear what this girl had to say. When I flipped to CNN, my eyes popped when I realized that this girl was actually a middle-aged woman with a Ph.D in foreign policy. I’d expected to see a little kid and instead I was watching an incredibly articulate adult. To me, girlmeant child and to my friend, girl meant female. That’s when I started paying attention to the usage of girl versus woman.

Click through to continue reading this post!
I’m a word person. I studied feminist rhetoric in college and I am deeply invested in identifying the subtle gender-specific pronouns in our vocabularies. I know I’m hypersensitive to a lot of gender inequalities at which other people wouldn’t bat an eyelash. See what I did there? I don’t pay attention to these choices because I think it’s ironic, or funny, or interesting – I seek them out because I am so acutely aware of their impact. A few nights ago, while I was enjoying dinner with my partner, my phone buzzed. It was a group text from a family friend wishing a Happy New Year to, “my sweet girls and their men.” The message was meant sincerely, so I thanked her, but I couldn’t read it without considering the subliminal imbalance in her phrasing.
Unless there’s a distinct precedence to use “woman,” I’ve found that the general public usually uses “girl” to mean “female.” This would be okay if the gender equivalent “boy” was used as often to mean male…but it isn’t. Depending on the situation, a male may be a “guy,” or a “man,” or a “dude,” or a “bro”. While some of these are not the most flattering choices, they still emphasize dominating characteristics. When “boy” is used it’s to emphasize permissible immature behavior, because, you know, boys will be boys.

As girls – I mean, as women – we spend so much time distinguishing the boys from the men. We want a man who has a real job and savings account and an adult-size bed with a boxspring that isn’t resting on the floor. We don’t focus as much on the girl becoming a woman. It’s okay to be daddy’s little girl until, you know, you find someone else to take care of you. It’s okay if we don’t know how to change a tire or pay a bill – girls don’t like dirt. Or math. It may sound trivial, but these generalities and subtle diction choices make all the difference. As women, our titles are too often defined by our relationships to the men in our lives. We’re Little Miss Child until we’re married and then we’re Mrs. HusbandsName. Not me. No, thank you.
I’ll break it down a bit so next time you’re describing a female, you can decide which word to use:

Girls are children.Girls are fragile.Girls need parental consentGirls need a guardian to see a movie in a public theater.Girls must be escorted by an adult in expensive department stores.Girls have curfews.Girls have bedtimes.Girls are adorable dreamers, but, like little boys, they are also incredibly needy, reliant and submissive.
Women are adults.Women are strong.Women are self-sufficient.Women are in control of their own decisions.Women can vote.Women can drive.Women are responsible.Women can buy a house.Women can run for office.Women can hold rank in the military.Women can decline sex and unwanted advances.

Women can be adorable dreamers, too. And they are fun and playful and adventurous. Women are free to be everything that girls are, but because they have wisdom and perspective, they can make active decisions about who they want to be – decidedly not Mrs. HusbandsName.

Chiming in with my two cents here at the end – I think Nicole closes on an interesting point that actress Zosia Mametbriefly touched on in a Today Show interview, describing a person’s 20’s as a, “terribly selfish period of life,” a time when a person is preoccupied with coming to terms with his or her identity. It seems the wisdom and perspective Nicole mentions here as components of Womanhood and their apparent lacking in the characters in Girls may explain Dunham’s title choice. In which case I imagine we should just get rid of the term, “men,” because…I mean, really. (Joke!)[#donaldtrump] For more of Nicole, check out her blog. Like this post? Then read up on gender and sexuality here and here.

In this post: photography David Williams  Topman//jacket vintage // leggings American Apparel skirt thrifted // shoes thrifted 
Men in skirts. It’s a hot button issue that has people in the streets talking – how will we know who’s a woman and who’s a man anymore in this freaky deaky gender-bending upside-down world? The answer? You won’t! Muahahaha, the Gay Agenda strikes again! Soon there will no longer be ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ babies, just cribs labeled, ‘Jaden’ or ‘Roxx’.
Joke! But, seriously, there has been an increased public interest in men wearing skirts, if only because of the continued influence of Kanye West and his designer-dud-loving hip-hop contemporaries. When I last touched on this issue (Men Without Pants), I declared, “wearing a skirt isn’t emasculating because maybe looking ‘like a woman’, like looking ‘like a man’, isn’t something to be ashamed of – nor is it something defined by an article of clothing.” That statement still pretty well sums up my feelings on this issue, but now that I’m a convert myself, the absurdity of our social unease with men wearing skirts is more profoundly striking.
A skirt is, in terms of construction, an absurdly sexless garment. It’s a piece of f*cking fabric that you wrap around/pull up on your waist. Sure, they get more complicated, but not necessarily so. My friend Brandon, one of the most distinctive and honest dressers I know, recently wrote a great post about the societal implications of his sartorial preference for skirts, describing them as an empowering weapon against oppressive heteronormativity. My skirt-wearing has not gotten that far and doesn’t resonate with me so deeply (yet), but taking this chance, slight as it is, has left me feeling emboldened to explore my options outside of the prescriptive world of #menswear. Can I wear a dress? How? What is a dress? Why is a skirt? There’s a lot of layering potential my eyes have been opened to recently because of this – could I wear a dress over pants? A shirt over that? A blazer with a skirt? Understanding these items divorced from gender helps eliminate outdated connotations – that a man wearing women’s clothing is, “in drag,” or “cross dressing.” Those things are separate from this, but hoping the general public will comprehend that is…reaching.

But here’s what you really want to know…so I bought this tartan skirt for $12 a few months ago and have been struggling to figure out how best to wear it. It made its debut a few months back (check it out on Instagram , but hasn’t gotten much action since. I decided to give it another go during post-blizzard fashion week while shooting outside Lincoln Center. I was pretty miserably cold, but I managed to get photographed by BuzzFeed Shift (I’m number 24 on their list), so obviously I make great life choices. This second time around I’ve paired it with my super intense fringed leather biker jacket that I love so much, but have never shot for the blog before. I literally die for fringe, plus this S.O.B. has epaulets – be still my beating heart! Leggings are an obvious must when going sans pants in the dead of winter and I like the way my thrifted Bass platforms give the outfit a schoolgirl-gone-bad edge. One thing I want to make note of, in typing out my thoughts here – I’m indeed wearing a (vintage) size 12 woman’s skirt here, not a kilt, the difference being…I mean, IDK, but it’s not an authentic kilt. Also, can I get a hurrah for a half-thrifted half-vintage outfit that’s decidedly modern? That is all.
Click through to read about my inspirations for this post!

Or…from gay to Kimye! Marc Jacobs was big into skirt-wearing a few years ago, then Givenchy showed them, then Kanye West wore them. Also, a cute picture of models wearing kilts in an MJ ad and Gerard Butler proving that real men (?) wear kilts.

This week I’ve teamed up with McArthur of Daily Mister to show two different ways to put a personal spin on spring neckwear from Ohk + Leaf. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Ohk + Leaf was founded by brothers Caleb and Ethan with the help of their mother, a fourth-generation seamstress. Caleb cites Nick Wooster and Michael Bastian as inspirations, as well as Gene Kelly and Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria. “My moodboard is a mix of pure Americana and genre-bending, gender-defying individuals wearing classically powerful clothing,” Caleb told me.
I paired my bright orange bow with a shirt from In God We Trust, a thrifted windbreaker and my Cheap Monday skinnies. The #supercute shoes are c/o Florsheim by Duckie Brown (You may remember I  ‘grammed their spring offerings hereand ere.)

While I embraced pops of color, McArthur took his bow in a more butch direction. He wears a vintage hat from the Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show, pants from Gap, a denim jacket from American Eagle Outfitters and boots by Dr. Scholls. To enter our giveaway, simply drop by the *fruitpunch Facebook page and ‘like’ the post pinned to the top (It says “Giveaway!” You can’t miss it.) Two winners will be chosen at random and sent an Ohk + Leaf bowtie! Get social with Ohk + Leaf on Facebook and Twitter.