CHH i feel like you're going through a vaguely similar fashion journey as me the past few years. im 37 and at some point realized that "quirky" style reads differently once you're no longer ~young~. it stops giving manic pixie dream girl and starts giving eccentric art teacher. (no disrespect at all to the quirky art teachers of the world it's just not what im going for). love the idea of one of these bags with an otherwise toned-down look, though!
Yeah. I don't think almost anything on this list does it alone but that apartment jacket gave me flashbacks to an eccentric art teacher I had. She was big on quirky & colourful felted hats, too. The good thing, as you say, is that you can still incorporate these things into a more classic, mature style, it can even be a fun intellectual challenge!
After months of listening to me lament not buying a Kate Spade sheepdog purse before it predictably sold out (can’t believe I didn’t see it coming!), my husband surprised me with a dupe. Marital bliss!
Am a fan of clothes that look like things, and i think i can pull some of these types of things off, but I think it requires the rest of the outfit to be very understated, both in terms of cut and colour, which is not your vibe (and I love your vibe!). Man do I want that check shirt, and the landscape dress tho.....
Can I just reiterate that you have an excellent sense of style? The yellow outfit with the matching butterfly purse is darling! How is anyone saying otherwise? What would you consider good fashion these days?!
I almost got those lemon wedge shoes you posted once. Thank god I got over that. But I don't think I can get over this coat. I am always looking to make coats more interesting. The best I have right now is a pastel green but it still looks so stuffy and coat like. This coat is too cute to resist. I will do the thing of saving up my book budget and then I shall swipe it (rather than swipe and then pay!) this way if I don't get it I will have no one but myself to blame.
I also have lots of fun things but since I mostly just wear jeans and shirts or dresses I think my Things are often in my earrings (I have hearts and clams and shells and yes cherries and abstract faces), charm bracelets and necklaces, bag charms (my sister got me a felt dog and cactus for my bag!!) and key chains. Most of everything else I have is very sensible. Unless you count my onitsuga tiger shoes with an actual tiger charm on them.
This will be venturing into dangerous territory. I am also obsessed with your butterfly purse! It is so cute!! Reminds me of a teddy bear purse my sister had as a kid.
Architecture has a similar distinction, called "Ducks versus Decorated Sheds." Ducks are buildings that are built like ducks. Decorated sheds are normal buildings with decorations on them. Here's an overview:
"Where other Modernist professionals saw a wasteland of kitsch and pseudo-historical decor, Venturi and Scott Brown found rich layers of meaning in the symbolism applied to otherwise-boring buildings."
I recommend becoming a pretentious twerp and launching into a whole discourse about Modernism and submerged symbolism and expressionism the next time someone says, "Wow, dumb purse" about your butterfly bag. Ask ChatGPT for help if needed.
I think it was round about June last year that you started posting your fashion favourites every month. At that point in time, I was a young male autist who had precisely zero interest in fashion - my ‘style’ consisted entirely of whatever combination of hoodie, jeans and polo shirts were at the top of my drawer and I was still entirely relying on clothes my parents had brought me.
However, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to have a scroll through one of your outfit posts to have a look, and as I did, I started to realise that there was an intuition I had hitherto been suppressing which meant I was able to form an immediate gut instinct about which exactly of the outfits worked, and what exactly you’d need to do to change them to fix them. One thing I’ve found as I get older is that it turns out I have exceptionally good pattern recognition skills, and it seems like I had basically been accumulating humongous amounts of information and forming a tacit model of how things worked, which I was then systematically ignoring because in my autistic opinion, “forming opinions about people based purely on what they looked like was illogical and wrong”. Turns out that when it did turn on, it actually worked exceptionally well (I’ve found the exact same thing with personalities, where I’ve gone from rigidly refusing to accept body language means something to suddenly being able to read people like a book).
This realisation then sparked me down a rabbit hole of researching brands, body types and the mechanical ways in which outfits draw the eye and create flow, and I was also able to combine this with my existing knowledge in my own specialty of strategy and systems thinking. I thus have now since developed a full passion for styling, gone on a full shopping spree, and have effectively entirely revamped my own wardrobe. I’m more confident about my style now and I’d say it’s about ten times better than it was; in this regard, your fashion blogging has had a genuinely positive impact on my life.
What it does however also mean is that I have a sense of fashion that is both A: highly developed from first principles and B: entirely separate from ‘mainstream’ conceptions of what is or isn’t cool (insofar as I have a ‘fashion ideology’, it would probably be best expressed in the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy - a corporate strategy book that doesn’t even mention clothing). As such, I am both very good at understanding how these things work, whilst having zero preconceived notions about the appropriateness of items that look like things or otherwise. I am also looking for an intellectual challenge. With that in mind, I’d honestly say go for it with the ‘stuff that looks like” things - if nothing else, *I* will happily give you my honest assessments ans suggestions (which you are completely free to disregard!) and join you on your quest to rationalise these items into actually wearable outfits. Men’s clothing is fine but it gets repetitive fairly quickly, and I feel like over the course of your posts I’ve gotten a reasonably good read on your intended style that won’t just see me telling you to ditch the fun stuff entirely.
Thus, if you want to continue your goal to collect and use the world’s largest collection of clothes that look like things, I promise to provide at least one person given genuine constructive feedback in the intended spirit of things that isn’t just telling you to either ignore style entirely or ditch the items because they’re inappropriate!
Clothes that look like things are too twee and juvenile to me. The lion shoes go hard and are now on my list, because my chronic issue is heraldryslop — weapons, medieval stuff, and animals like lions, dragons, etc. I can feel a little silly like a kid who melts down if they can’t wear something asinine like a spider-man costume every single day.
I also love clothes in this category or just with very out there patterns and colors but I can’t wear them. I buy stuff and then just stare at it wishing I knew how to pull it off.
I think one of the biggest problems with clothes like this is that they have to look really good, not $100 or $200 good but $500 good but not too much more. It has to be very high quality with the best materials and craftsmanship or they just look so kitschy. Strangely if you go into the ultra high priced items it seems to turn back around and head for kitschy even faster than the junk because it’s too avant garde I guess.
I think the key for normies though is to go with small “things”. Like a bag charm or a necklace on an otherwise fairly plain outfit and to practice restraint, only having 1 such item on at a time and not 4 or 5.
I like socks and earrings with things. When I taught school, I wouldn't go full Ms. Frizzle, but I did have a large collection of colorful socks. Now that I'm retired and a farmer, I have no use for my #2 pencil earrings or wild patterned socks.
I really wish I hadn't seen that landscape dress because I will be thinking about it all day. Not that I am going to buy it, although it would go well with the produce section of the market, where I seem to spend a lot of time.
I'm interested to see if any of your male readers will relate to this. Some of your female readers will relate all too well. In my case, it's not the fashion of things that is my downfall; it's that I swing wildly from "I must dress in color all the time, no neutrals they are dead to me" to "I am going to commit to a capsule wardrobe based on navy and/or black damnit".
I once met a young woman who had a purse shaped like a teapot. A white teapot with little pink flowers all over it. It was completely adorable!
I say, CHH, rock on with your love of clothes and accessories shaped like Things! You’ve got nothing to apologize for. I personally think those shoes that look like cars are cute and would look great on you. The golden lion shoes are a bit… much… but you could wear them on special occasions.
In a world of people wearing bland, utilitarian clothes (I include myself in this category), be the woman with the teapot purse!
This is such a weirdly relatable obsession. I love that sort of style too, but I actually do want to look like a Betsy Johnson babe. I think If I end up an elementary teacher, I won’t wear anything else
I love so many of these items in the post. I admit I'm a big fan of motifs. To be fair, I'm also perfectly fine giving eccentric, as long as it's in my preferred color palette. I got an amazing vintage sweater in Japan that looks like a landscape, with animals embroidered on it. But it's jewel toned, and not bright like the Lirika Matoshi dress in your post. I've gotten compliments on it almost everytime I've worn it. However, I definitely had a sea otter purse I bought in college that never got any use. For one, it was highly impractical, and I think that's my biggest issue with some of the items that looks like Things.
The problem with clothes that look like things is that they're neither for the male gaze nor for the female gaze.
I'm not sure if there is any gaze for them. Child gaze? Crazy gaze? Autistic gaze? TikTok gaze?
Child gaze. My kids love it!
ms frizzle but make it high femme
That’s what’s so great about them!
The last thing on earth you can truly wear For Yourself
Whimsical Inner Child Gaze FTW
Miss Frizzle gaze! 😁
Bring back Frizzlecore!
I'm not sure if I regret or am relieved that Princess Awesome did not exist back when I was teaching. Didn't Ms Frizzle have a dress like this?
https://princess-awesome.com/products/adult-kaiju-monsters-short-sleeve-maxi-dress-with-pockets?fbclid=IwY2xjawQFl7lleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFZak1UbGM5b0RjNEdMdjZ2c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtRODC5-wuR3nkkdkj7H6YgryBsMpaD7cfNG4KRibqaZqRoU3MHlN4iOzv6j_aem_ghXZZ3w4KOlabYh-nFlBUw
Outing myself as a huge nerd (obviously or I wouldn't be on Substack), but I would 100% wear that dress
The only thing that's saving me is that I don't like the high waists
CHH i feel like you're going through a vaguely similar fashion journey as me the past few years. im 37 and at some point realized that "quirky" style reads differently once you're no longer ~young~. it stops giving manic pixie dream girl and starts giving eccentric art teacher. (no disrespect at all to the quirky art teachers of the world it's just not what im going for). love the idea of one of these bags with an otherwise toned-down look, though!
Yeah. I don't think almost anything on this list does it alone but that apartment jacket gave me flashbacks to an eccentric art teacher I had. She was big on quirky & colourful felted hats, too. The good thing, as you say, is that you can still incorporate these things into a more classic, mature style, it can even be a fun intellectual challenge!
At first I thought, ooooh eccentric art teacher 😍 what’s not to love, but I guess there’s a thousand ways that that can go very wrong.
I said “no” on the poll but I do love the leaf dress. The leaf dress doesn’t count.
I’m glad bc I plan to wear it!
The leaf dress works because it's not green/doesn't have several shades of green and yellow shadowed to look like a leaf. It's more subtle!
yeah "Thing but classy" feels like a good outlet for this impulse
After months of listening to me lament not buying a Kate Spade sheepdog purse before it predictably sold out (can’t believe I didn’t see it coming!), my husband surprised me with a dupe. Marital bliss!
Am a fan of clothes that look like things, and i think i can pull some of these types of things off, but I think it requires the rest of the outfit to be very understated, both in terms of cut and colour, which is not your vibe (and I love your vibe!). Man do I want that check shirt, and the landscape dress tho.....
Can I just reiterate that you have an excellent sense of style? The yellow outfit with the matching butterfly purse is darling! How is anyone saying otherwise? What would you consider good fashion these days?!
I really appreciate it although I just worry I’m getting a little too old for the quirked up white girl thing! I fear it’s giving Ms Frizzle
On the contrary, the older you are the better Thing fashion works. Who do you think is keeping Judith Leiber in business? Not Gen Z!
Ok fine I am saving up 1000$ for the apartment coat. Thanks very much CHH. Dammit. There goes my book budget uh for the next uh three months.
If you get it, you NEED to post a photo and I will actually feature you vicariously.
I almost got those lemon wedge shoes you posted once. Thank god I got over that. But I don't think I can get over this coat. I am always looking to make coats more interesting. The best I have right now is a pastel green but it still looks so stuffy and coat like. This coat is too cute to resist. I will do the thing of saving up my book budget and then I shall swipe it (rather than swipe and then pay!) this way if I don't get it I will have no one but myself to blame.
I also have lots of fun things but since I mostly just wear jeans and shirts or dresses I think my Things are often in my earrings (I have hearts and clams and shells and yes cherries and abstract faces), charm bracelets and necklaces, bag charms (my sister got me a felt dog and cactus for my bag!!) and key chains. Most of everything else I have is very sensible. Unless you count my onitsuga tiger shoes with an actual tiger charm on them.
This will be venturing into dangerous territory. I am also obsessed with your butterfly purse! It is so cute!! Reminds me of a teddy bear purse my sister had as a kid.
I need someone to get that coat because I'd love it but it's too pastel for me. My goodness it's amazing.
Pastels are very much my thing since I was a kid. I’m unable to stop thinking about this
I lovelovelove how you measure potential expenses in terms of book money!
It’s got the biggest budget tbh so it’s also the only thing I can cut hehe.
Even better!
Architecture has a similar distinction, called "Ducks versus Decorated Sheds." Ducks are buildings that are built like ducks. Decorated sheds are normal buildings with decorations on them. Here's an overview:
https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-architecture-ducks-versus-decorated-sheds/
"Where other Modernist professionals saw a wasteland of kitsch and pseudo-historical decor, Venturi and Scott Brown found rich layers of meaning in the symbolism applied to otherwise-boring buildings."
I recommend becoming a pretentious twerp and launching into a whole discourse about Modernism and submerged symbolism and expressionism the next time someone says, "Wow, dumb purse" about your butterfly bag. Ask ChatGPT for help if needed.
Thanks for the architecture lesson!
I think it was round about June last year that you started posting your fashion favourites every month. At that point in time, I was a young male autist who had precisely zero interest in fashion - my ‘style’ consisted entirely of whatever combination of hoodie, jeans and polo shirts were at the top of my drawer and I was still entirely relying on clothes my parents had brought me.
However, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to have a scroll through one of your outfit posts to have a look, and as I did, I started to realise that there was an intuition I had hitherto been suppressing which meant I was able to form an immediate gut instinct about which exactly of the outfits worked, and what exactly you’d need to do to change them to fix them. One thing I’ve found as I get older is that it turns out I have exceptionally good pattern recognition skills, and it seems like I had basically been accumulating humongous amounts of information and forming a tacit model of how things worked, which I was then systematically ignoring because in my autistic opinion, “forming opinions about people based purely on what they looked like was illogical and wrong”. Turns out that when it did turn on, it actually worked exceptionally well (I’ve found the exact same thing with personalities, where I’ve gone from rigidly refusing to accept body language means something to suddenly being able to read people like a book).
This realisation then sparked me down a rabbit hole of researching brands, body types and the mechanical ways in which outfits draw the eye and create flow, and I was also able to combine this with my existing knowledge in my own specialty of strategy and systems thinking. I thus have now since developed a full passion for styling, gone on a full shopping spree, and have effectively entirely revamped my own wardrobe. I’m more confident about my style now and I’d say it’s about ten times better than it was; in this regard, your fashion blogging has had a genuinely positive impact on my life.
What it does however also mean is that I have a sense of fashion that is both A: highly developed from first principles and B: entirely separate from ‘mainstream’ conceptions of what is or isn’t cool (insofar as I have a ‘fashion ideology’, it would probably be best expressed in the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy - a corporate strategy book that doesn’t even mention clothing). As such, I am both very good at understanding how these things work, whilst having zero preconceived notions about the appropriateness of items that look like things or otherwise. I am also looking for an intellectual challenge. With that in mind, I’d honestly say go for it with the ‘stuff that looks like” things - if nothing else, *I* will happily give you my honest assessments ans suggestions (which you are completely free to disregard!) and join you on your quest to rationalise these items into actually wearable outfits. Men’s clothing is fine but it gets repetitive fairly quickly, and I feel like over the course of your posts I’ve gotten a reasonably good read on your intended style that won’t just see me telling you to ditch the fun stuff entirely.
Thus, if you want to continue your goal to collect and use the world’s largest collection of clothes that look like things, I promise to provide at least one person given genuine constructive feedback in the intended spirit of things that isn’t just telling you to either ignore style entirely or ditch the items because they’re inappropriate!
Clothes that look like things are too twee and juvenile to me. The lion shoes go hard and are now on my list, because my chronic issue is heraldryslop — weapons, medieval stuff, and animals like lions, dragons, etc. I can feel a little silly like a kid who melts down if they can’t wear something asinine like a spider-man costume every single day.
I also love clothes in this category or just with very out there patterns and colors but I can’t wear them. I buy stuff and then just stare at it wishing I knew how to pull it off.
I think one of the biggest problems with clothes like this is that they have to look really good, not $100 or $200 good but $500 good but not too much more. It has to be very high quality with the best materials and craftsmanship or they just look so kitschy. Strangely if you go into the ultra high priced items it seems to turn back around and head for kitschy even faster than the junk because it’s too avant garde I guess.
I think the key for normies though is to go with small “things”. Like a bag charm or a necklace on an otherwise fairly plain outfit and to practice restraint, only having 1 such item on at a time and not 4 or 5.
I like socks and earrings with things. When I taught school, I wouldn't go full Ms. Frizzle, but I did have a large collection of colorful socks. Now that I'm retired and a farmer, I have no use for my #2 pencil earrings or wild patterned socks.
I really wish I hadn't seen that landscape dress because I will be thinking about it all day. Not that I am going to buy it, although it would go well with the produce section of the market, where I seem to spend a lot of time.
I'm interested to see if any of your male readers will relate to this. Some of your female readers will relate all too well. In my case, it's not the fashion of things that is my downfall; it's that I swing wildly from "I must dress in color all the time, no neutrals they are dead to me" to "I am going to commit to a capsule wardrobe based on navy and/or black damnit".
I also have this impulse! Also male gaze vs cool (obviously)
I once met a young woman who had a purse shaped like a teapot. A white teapot with little pink flowers all over it. It was completely adorable!
I say, CHH, rock on with your love of clothes and accessories shaped like Things! You’ve got nothing to apologize for. I personally think those shoes that look like cars are cute and would look great on you. The golden lion shoes are a bit… much… but you could wear them on special occasions.
In a world of people wearing bland, utilitarian clothes (I include myself in this category), be the woman with the teapot purse!
This is such a weirdly relatable obsession. I love that sort of style too, but I actually do want to look like a Betsy Johnson babe. I think If I end up an elementary teacher, I won’t wear anything else
If it’s the whole aesthetic it works! In my case it’s not, so it looks weird lol
I am obsessed with this pigeon bag I keep seeing on IG and feel a little called out.
(Look at it though! https://madison-makes.com/shop/fly-away-crossbody-bird-bag-sewing-pattern)
I kind of want to sew this one
I love it unironically
I love so many of these items in the post. I admit I'm a big fan of motifs. To be fair, I'm also perfectly fine giving eccentric, as long as it's in my preferred color palette. I got an amazing vintage sweater in Japan that looks like a landscape, with animals embroidered on it. But it's jewel toned, and not bright like the Lirika Matoshi dress in your post. I've gotten compliments on it almost everytime I've worn it. However, I definitely had a sea otter purse I bought in college that never got any use. For one, it was highly impractical, and I think that's my biggest issue with some of the items that looks like Things.