Manolo for the Big Girl

Oh yeah, I’m a lucky lady.

You see, recently Shop Translated picked several blogs to participate in giveaways of their clothes. I entered the prize drawing at Hyde and Seek, a blog I enjoy tremendously. As it happens, I was one of the winners. As a winner, I was allowed to pick one piece of clothing from Shop Translated. The only caveat was that it couldn’t be from the New Arrivals section. Fair enough.

It took a little while to make my decision, but when I saw the sleeveless wrap dress:

I knew I’d found my piece.

My new dress arrived on saturday. Considering that I won just seven days earlier, I call that swift service. The good folks at Shop Translated even congratulated me on my win on the invoice. Nice touch.

So what do I think of my win? First off, the picture does not do it justice. I thought it looked pretty in the picture, but it’s absolutely gorgeous in person. The splashy print is in purple, turquoise, and navy blue – my favorite colors – on a warm ivory background. And while the fabric is polyester, it’s a high grade of polyester. The seams and hems are finished impeccably.  Seriously, I haven’t seen such neat finishing for this price in a very, very, very long time. There are small vents at the sides of the skirt (just a couple inches), and while it looks sort of cap sleeved in the picture, it actually is sleeveless.

At 5′2″ I’m definitely shorter than the model, but I prefer to wear my skirts a little long, so that’s no problem. It hits about mid-calf on me. What’s closer to being a problem (for me) is the fact that the model is also more chestally endowed than I am. I’m a C cup and the ‘wrap’ bodice is inclined to open up a bit more than I’d like. As in, I had trouble covering up my bra. Still, it’s nothing a well-placed brooch or a couple of small tacking stitches can’t take care of. In the meantime, those of you in the D – DD range will probably get a perfect fit on the faux wrap.

In short, I consider this site an excellent place to look for something new to wear at a reasonable price.

Go, thou, and support a fine purveyor of attractive clothes for the more generously-sized lady of fashion consciousness.

So I got some sleep and there’s no sign I’ve actually ordered a horse, which is more than a small relief.  I thought I’d give the mosaic theme a break today and treat you to a few bits o’ choreographed brill from this week’s list courtesy of Judy Garland and Rufus Wainwright.

Reading: Wise Blood by Flannery O’Conn0r. There’s no Gothic like Southern Gothic and there’s no guilt like Catholic Guilt. Besides, “no man with a good car needs to be justified”.

Watching: Summer Stock — my favorite Let’s Put on a Show musical, courtesy of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly

Hearing: Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall -in a continuing theme of Saint Judy.  He lived the dream. Bastard.

Smelling: Bvlgari Black. A weird fragrance I usually save for summer, but a fine example showing not all brilliant perfumes are expensive.  You can pick up Black for under 30 bucks online or at Ross/TJ Maxx etc. The notes in Black include black rubber and tar. Before you turn up your nose, read this review from Bois de Jasmin and then go out and try it. Originally a men’s fragrance it’s being marketed to women, too which makes me think it’s gearing up for a relaunch and corresponding price hike. If you like it, get some now.

Loving: Cows N’ Things Everyone wants to help those adorable little poor children and that’s great and all, but what about the old folks? I won’t teeter up on my soap box about the way Western culture treats its elderly, because I could go on for.ev.er about it and if you want to be tediously lectured there are plenty of other places to go for that. BUT Cows n’ Things is a great charity.  You can buy chicks, a beehive, a donkey ambulance OR cataract surgery (for about 20 USD!!!) for an eldery person in developing nations throughout the world.

Hating: The concept of “being good” or “being bad” at the holidays, especially when it comes to food. It’s ridiculous to see grown damn woman smile like their mischievous toddlers whispering loudly they’re “being bad” and having another sausage ball. Listen, if you need to justify to a room of people what you’re eating AND put a moral judgment on it, your problems are a lot deeper than Bisquick-based party snacks.

Wanting: chocolate-dipped spiced apricots. Partially submerge plump dried apricots in dark chocolate and let set. Drizzle pre-dipped bits with bitter sweet or white chocolate and dust with pumpkin pie spice/warm aromatic spice of your choice. Let chill. Dead easy, makes a million and are super delicious.

Buying: Ovation Finalist Pro Field Boots with extra-wide calves (check the size chart, you may have to go with men’s extra-wides)

…I thought I would let you know The Basement of the Bargains is back, baby!

Plumcake’s post about Cherries in the Snow reminded Francesca of another oldie-but-goodie, which she has inherited with love from her saintly mother.

Nivea Creme!

Smells heavenly and comes in the traditional tub, the modern tube, or in cute little retro tins.

Use everywhere except your face for rich moisturizing and feminine fragrance!

It’s that time again. Halloween, when everything comes out of the shadows — ghouls, ghosts, goblins — with narry a plus-size costume in sight that doesn’t involve bare cleavage and thighs.

Francesca does not wish to use this space to bemoan the days of yore, before Halloween became synonymous with slutty costuming. All she will say is that, in her own circles, people win more points for creativity than for T and A, and she wouldn’t be surprised if that is true for most of you, too, oh ye women of taste and class. That’s all she will say.

So, how to go about creating or buying the superfantastic costume?

Search Your Closet. You probably already have the makings of a costume. Want to be Batgirl? Pull on black pants, knee-high boots, and a close-fitting black top, and make a yellow bat to pin to your chest out of satin or even construction paper. Now all you need is a cape and an eyemask and you are done. Vamp up your makeup to complete the look.  Francesca’s best costume ever involved a fedora, wig, sunglasses and trench coat; the trench coat had a Letter O pinned to the inside, which she offered to sell to people (in yet another Sesame Street reference); watches would have worked, too.

Buy a full costume. There are modest ones to be had, if you search hard enough. Buy early because modest, plus-size costumes sell out quickly. Try One Stop Plus,  Plus Size Costume Super Center, Plus Size Costume Fashions, Anytime Costumes, Annie’s Costumes, Halloween Adventure (keep scrolling), and Costume Craze.

If you are Apple-shaped, look for costumes that evoke styles of the Middle Ages or Renaissance, such as this Queen Elizabeth dress or this Tavern Wench costume.

Buy Pieces of a Costume. If you cannot afford a full costume, or cannot find one that suits you, another option is to buy pieces separately to mix and match. Francesca, for example, has purchased a witch hat, wig, cape, false eyelashes — all in blue jewel tones –  and witchlike shoe covers, and will do up her makeup with lots of blue glitter. Who cares what she calls it, she loves blue.

Dorothy Ruby Slippers available at One Stop Plus and other vendors

Here, Francesca urges you to patronize those vendors who  serve the plus-size population year-round:  Torrid.com Plus Sized Halloween Costumes is selling Halloween wings, tiaras, masks, fishnets, makeup, etc. , and One Stop Plus, in addition to full costumes, has wigs, Halloween purses, etc. (Francesca loves the Coffin Clutch)

Sew Your Own or hire a seamstress. Francesca still remembers 7th grade, when Rachelle Lamberte came to our costume party dressed as a perfect replica of Disney’s Snow White, wearing a dress her mother had hand-made for her, complete with the stiff white collar behind her head and the red headband with the bow.  The costume was memorable partly because Rachelle had the exact perfect hair — not a wig, her own, real hairstyle — to go with it, and a perfect figure, and a mother who went to the trouble of making that for her, and the rest of us realized that we could never, ever compete.  Indeed, the next year Rachelle embarked on a romantic relationship with a hot 10th-grader, who delivered flowers to her at her locker once a week. In the contest of life, Rachelle Lamberte was the clear winner . . . until Adrienne Chevalier’s chest, along with Adrienne,  transferred to our school and Rachelle sort of faded into the background.

::blink blink::

Oh, I’m sorry. Francesca got carried away. Ahem. The point is, a costume sewn just for you will be memorable.

One more point:

Don’t mock existing populations of people with your costume. It is one thing to wear old-time styles such as poodle skirts or hoop skirts or tie-dyes, or to dress as aspirational professions such as astronauts, doctors, or firepeople. It is another thing to mock ethnic or religious populations. Rule of thumb: how would someone who actually has that identity feel if you walked by them on the street?

If you think it is all in good fun and Francesca should relax, take a look at this costume and imagine how you would feel if this showed up at your Halloween party. See what I mean? (Thanks, Leah G, for the link.)

Finally, an invitation:

Send us pictures of you in your Halloween costume, for us to post! Send them to Francesca@shoeblogs.com

Until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of Coastal Scents, a small cosmetics company based in Florida, and when I visited their site on a whim I wasn’t especially impressed. The site was a no-frills online store, the photographs weren’t professional beauty shots and the menus less than intuitive. But I was intrigued.

Coastal Scents, unlike traditional mascara slingers, caters to a combination of mad-scientists and professionals; make-up artists, resellers and people who want to make their own custom blends. They don’t just sell makeup, they sell makeup components, including pure pigment.

I am constantly on the hunt for intensely pigmented matte colors.

MAC is great and I heartily recommend them, but I have a hard time justifying dropping $15 for a shadow pot I might use once or twice a year. As far as drug store brands go, I’ve had good luck with the L’Oreal HiP line and Milani, which is marketed towards women with darker skin tones and generally contains more pigment, but they’re almost always too sparkly and their lasting power leaves a good deal to be desired. Plus I can’t use their cream-based products because of my eyelash extensions.

Coastal Scents sells their pigments by the half-teaspoon, teaspoon, ounce and pound. I ordered teaspoons of several oxides and micas (at a dollar each!)  which is what they call “sample size”. Sample size it may be, but for the recreational user, a teaspoon of pigment is a LOT of makeup. They arrived packaged neatly in teensy zipper bags. Each bag was labeled with the color, approved uses –eyes, lips, face, nails etc.– and the ingredients.

I popped each pigment into its own five gram jar ($3.49 for 10) and started experimenting.

Using their excellent 13 piece brush set ($16.95 including roll) which is by far the best brush set for the money I’ve ever come across, I began monkeying around with applications. First I applied some pigment with a very wet brush and got a lovely, even wash of color. Then I added a drop of fixative (I think mine came from a N.Y.C. loose powder kit) for a full-on intense look. The color payoff was tremendous as good or better as anything I’ve used including the MAC pro colors. It blended like a dream and although there was a good deal of fallout on the dry applications, that’s to be expected with any highly pigmented powder, especially since I forgot to use a primer the first time.

Using a primer is always a good idea with powders, especially if you’ve got deep set or oily eyelids, because powders as a species tend to “travel”.

Primer gives the powder something to grip, making your application last longer and stay where you damn well put it. The nice folks a Make Up Forever sent me a sample of their HD Microperfecting primer in Neutral the other day which is what I’ve been using and I highly recommend it, but historically my trusty old Rimmel Fix and Perfect primer has never steered me wrong and would probably work almost as well.

My only complaint with the Coastal Scents pigments was they don’t offer a really screaming yellow, which I’ve needed for a particular look for ages. I finally caved and bought Make Up Forever’s Pure Pigment #2, which is good, but not the Holy Grail yellow I’d been searching for, especially not for $20, which was nearly as much as I paid for the entire Coastal Scents 42 Color Double Stack Matte Palette ($24.95).

I am way, WAY gun shy about inexpensive palettes. Too many years of cheap Christmas sets with chalky colors meant for little girls playing dress up have left me with a fear and loathing of the multicolor pack, so I can’t tell you why I ordered this.

Maybe it was because the colors were matte –once you’re past the glitter and gloss stage, mattes are a much cooler look than shimmers which tend to look cheap even if they’re not–or maybe I was hoping for that Holy Grail Yellow (close but not quite) but I wasn’t expecting much.

I’m glad I was wrong.

This is by far the best big palette I’ve seen for under $100. It’s a great combination of neutrals and brights, plus some killer blushes and bronzers. The browns are almost exact duplicates of MAC mushroom and bark, which are great browns I use for eyebrow powders (apply it with an angled brush) and the pressed colors have the same ease of blending and almost the same intensity as the wonderful pure pigments.

Next week I’ll have a review of their mineral foundations and veils, plus I’ll reveal The Greatest Cosmetic Brush Ever.  Stay tuned!

Francesca says, instead of a reminder, today she brings you a tip!

Francesca’s Maman gave her a lovely gift of a makeup bag full of all the sample goodies which Maman had received at various department store cosmetics counters. Among the loot was a set of eye shadows in lovely shades, with the exception of a plum color which makes Francesca look like she’d been punched in the eye (!).

What to do with with the plum/mauve/pink eyeshadow that does not look good on the eyes?

We turn it into a lip shade!

Just smear a little vaseline or gloss on the lips, use the eyeshadow applicator to brush on some of the powder, and voila! You have a new lip shade for emergencies. Actually, Francesca likes this plum stuff  on her lips so much she’s been using it every day.

xoxo!

It’s spring time in the South, which means all the Right Type of Girls are getting out their mallets and their whites in preparation for the first croquet party of the season (there are other girls who are getting out their Princess t-shirts and cut-offs, but those are decidedly NOT the Right Type of Girl and thus are of no interest to us here).

Don’t get me wrong, I love a strict dress code as much as the next girl, and when I have my party later this month I’ll probably wear whites but since I am playing with people who wouldn’t know a wicket if it reached around and fondled their budgies, the gracious hostess takes the broad view of things.

Besides, you’d hate to show up and someone was wearing the same thing:

Instead I recommend seersucker.We already know it’s beyond dapper on a man; I saw the year’s first besuckered gent on Sunday and it made my heart leap for joy. But what about we gals? Wither our waffleweave?

There’s good news. If you can look past the horrendous styling, you can get some excellent quality seersucker for next to nothing.

This is secretly really good. No. It is. I know they styled it for crap and of course you’d never wear the jacket and the dress together, but I love the idea of that jacket over a t-shirt and a cream kid leather skirt, or a pair of brilliant jeans and the dress (hemmed to hit you perfectly, of course) would be prosh with a little cardi or a more structured jacket. Under $25 bucks for the set at Roamans.

I do not approve of those shoes. I do, however, approve of that dress. A dead easy sundress in an interesting take on the seersucker conceit. Seersucker does tend to err on the side of precious, so be sure to toughen it up with disciplined, modern accesories unless you’re going for the Doris Day Patio Party look (which, hey, works for me).  Remember, fit is EVERYTHING with these dresses, so be sure to have it altered if it doesn’t fit you like a dream $20 at One Stop Plus.

I’ve got to say that I’m not entirely on board with this dress. I don’t like puff sleeves BUT I have a feeling this –in the navy and white stripe– could really work in person. I like the waist and the shirtdress styling, which you don’t often see in seersucker, from $17 at One Stop Plus.

And of course if you’re wondering how to accessorize, take a cue from Charles Dodgson.

A flamingo is ALWAYS appropriate.