Styledash

Wear the rock!

Whit Honea — 2008-04-16T15:12:00 00:00

Filed under: Casual wear, Vintage wear, Remember When, Men, Tops, Celebrity Style, Styles that Stick

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

Do you love the 80's? Perhaps you have a fondness for the big hair and power ballads of your youth or just an appreciation for those that came before you. Holy crap, everyone here was alive in the 80's, right?

Gallery: Vintage Concert Shirts

Continue reading Wear the rock!

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Mr. Rogers remembered with Sweater Day

Whit Honea — 2008-02-27T19:03:00 00:00

Filed under: Style icons, Accessories, Style in the media, Casual wear, Remember When, Men, Celebrity Style, Kids and Babies, Do Good

On Thursday, March 20th, the 80th birthday of the late Fred Rogers will be remembered with Sweater Day. You may recall that the sweater was his signature piece. It's also something that most people already have in their closet. That's why they chose it over Loafer and Keds Day, and let's be honest, Trolley Day never really stood a chance.

I'm all for it. I grew up with Mr. Rogers (not personally) and remember his contribution to my childhood fondly. I just wish they had started observing his birthday a few years ago so my friends and I could have bought a keg of Iron City beer and listened to Weezer all night. Come on, you know someone has got to do it.

What's funny is that I hadn't thought much about Mr. Rogers over the years until today, and it wasn't this post that brought back the memories, but the fact that my four-year-old went on a field-trip today to the local planetarium and the show was narrated by Fred Rogers, a 'the planets in our neighborhood' sort of thing. I like to think that the people running the show have kept it due to the timelessness and all things good that is Mr. Rogers, and not that they have no funding and won't include the demise of Pluto until they get the Wiggles version in 2012.

But I digress. March 20th is Sweater Day. Wear one.

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Shake it like a Polaroid picture? Not anymore

Whit Honea — 2008-02-12T18:23:00 00:00

Filed under: Haute Home, Accessories, Remember When, Celebrity Style

First the dodo and now this. My childhood is falling apart (please note the dodo was actually gone long before my childhood).

Polaroid is going to focus on flat panel televisions and digital photography and in the process will be laying off 150 workers. What does this mean to us, the non-Polaroid employees? It means that future generations will eye instant photography with the same awe and doubt formerly saved for the likes of 8-tracks and corduroy shorts. Another piece of Americana is now history. On the bright side, this may have a positive effect on any pending eBay sales of said products. How's that for a nice spin?

I wonder how André 3000 feels about this. Will every Outkast concert have to be stopped mid Hey Ya! and the art of shaking 'it' like a Polaroid picture explained? Or will we leave such knowledge to the tall tales of previous generations? Or Google?

It's a bittersweet trip, this progress.

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Library of Congress Unleashes Fashionable 1930s-40s Photos on Flickr

Mallory Whitfield — 2008-01-31T22:08:00 00:00

Filed under: Vintage wear, Remember When

I just found out about the amazing collection of color photographs from the 1930s and 1940s that the Library of Congress has just made available via Flickr. This set is comprised of over 1,600 photographs taken during the Great Depression and World War II. Being a history geek and a huge follower of vintage fashions, I naturally found this collection extremely inspiring.

This is a massive collection of photos to sift through. Believe me -- I know because I just did it. But I did manage to gather some of my favorite fashionable photographs from these collections. They are filled with beautiful colors, amazingly coifed hair, utilitarian and military stylings, and loads of fashion inspiration. If you're a fan of vintage or retro fashions like I am, I urge you to take a peek, or check out the Library of Congress blog for more info on this amazing project.

[Via Mental Floss]

Gallery: Library of Congress Makes Flickr Fashionable

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Shave like a man

Josh Loposer — 2008-01-31T16:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Accessories, Remember When, Men, Skin Care, Soaps & Salves

Guys, remember when you turned 18 and you got a free Gillette disposable razor in the mail? Since then, maybe you graduated to the electric razor or some fancy turbo 10-blade number. Regardless, don't you feel like something's missing from our modern shaving experience? Some kind of old school craftsmanship, maybe? Today's disposable razors aren't simply taking the fun out of shaving, they're leaving us all with poor shaves and razor burn.

How's about taking a trip back in time, where men were men and a clean shave was a work of art. The old fashioned 'wet shave' is making a comeback these days, and that means you can acquire some classic shaving tools that will last you can use forever. You'll feel like a dapper gent after your morning shave and you'd be taking part in the gentlemanly tradition enjoyed by greats like Hemingway and John Wayne. Whether you choose a safety razor -- like the one pictured -- or the even more badass straight razor, you're going to get a better shave with less irritation.

Most of us who use disposables and electric razors spend a few minutes every day fighting a stubborn patch somewhere on the underside of our jaw -- only to leave behind a splotchy raw spot on our neck for the rest of the morning. Shaving with a traditional razor means you'll only be using one blade, rather than chewing up your face with multiple blades. Not to mention, traditional shave soaps and creams are made using natural ingredients, so you're not shoving stinky chemical products into the nicks in your face.

[via ArtofManliness]

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Top 10 fashion must-haves of 2007

Lauren Messiah — 2007-12-17T14:23:00 00:00

Filed under: Style in the media, Remember When

You know the year is coming to an end when the Top 10 lists start taking over ... Time Magazine has named the 10 must have fashion items of 2007.

10. Cocktail Rings: One of the hottest trends of 2007 that will certainly stick around in 2008. The bigger the better is the way to go with cocktail rings.

9. Red Lipstick: It was big time glamour in 2007 with red lips coming in at number one in the beauty world. Celebrities like Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera gave everyday women the courage to go red.

8. Bright Tights: It was the year of the tights in 2007 and the trend will continue through the beginning of 2008. Basic black was always a staple in '07 but colored tights were the big story in 2007.

7. Fedoras: Hats are always in vogue because they are necessary for covering up bad hair days. In 2007 fedoras were no longer just for the boys because honestly they look damn good on the girls. Mary Kate Olson and Ashley Simpson made them part of their regular wardrobes.

6. Vests: A trend usually reserved for dorks and losers was a hot for the cool kids in '07. I am not talking about your standard bubble vest; we are talking a smooth and sexy menswear inspired vest.

5. Ankle Boots: 2006 had thigh high boots and like they say what goes up must come down -- so naturally in 2007 ankle boots were topping the style charts.

4. Day Clutch: The bag typically devoted for the evening has gone day. Bags that usually only have room for a lipstick has now been super-sized to fit all of your daytime needs.

3. High Waisted Jeans: Love em or hate em, high waisted jeans finally had their moment in the spotlight in 2007. The most flattering? No, probably not. The most stylish? No, not that either. In spite of their shortcomings high waisted jeans made the list this year.

2. White Sunglasses: They may look like a joke but they aren't, they are a fashion must have for 2007. Celebrities from Drew Barrymore to Lindsay Lohan were all rocking the white sunnies. These sunglasses are great for summer and also work as a "winter white" this winter.

1. Tent Dress: It's shapeless, it makes you look kind of like a tent ... it's a tent dress. This shapeless frock was frowned upon in the beginning but as the months went on women embraced being able to hide their curves behind a billowy dress.

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Remembering our discontinued favorites

Anne Metz — 2007-10-01T12:35:00 00:00

Filed under: Style icons, Remember When

Do you ever wish that the products you once loved never went away?

I know I do. Every time I walk into the Body Shop, my heart aches a little when I look at the shampoo shelves. Nostalgia takes over, and I start to think back on the day that I discovered Body Shop's Blue Ice shampoo. The color, the smell, the tingly scalp feeling I'd get when I left it on a little too long -- oh it was so wonderful! Why did they ever discontinue it?!?

And don't even get me started on how much I miss Express's short-lived production of lingerie, which yielded the best pair of underwear I have ever worn in my life. (Confession: I still have them! Who cares if they're 8 years old?)

Alas, the list of items I have loved and lost seems endless: Clearly Canadian's sparkling raspberry drink in the clear glass bottle; aluminum-free Adidas deodorant; Concord grape New York Seltzer Water; the old Tide smell; Diet Coke with lemon (I hate the lime version)...

Now that we're on the topic of discontinued favorites, what are yours? Leave a comment, and we'll randomly pick one person to receive the discontinued item of their heart's desire! Just kidding about that last part, but let us know what you've loved and lost anyway.

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Remember when: Normal pants

Annie Wu — 2007-07-17T13:19:00 00:00

Filed under: Casual wear, Remember When, Jeans and Denim

I recently posted about Fergie's awkward high-waisted pants and I was surprised by the number of responses I received about how I was hating on decency and praising low-waisted pants. Funny thing is, nowhere in my post did I say anything about hip-huggers, let alone imply any sort of love for the trend. Somehow, people interpreted my dislike of high-waisted pants as adoration for muffin-top makers.

That got me thinking... What happened to normal pants? Where are the pants that are not high enough to look like mom jeans, but not low enough to expose the panties (or lack thereof). Are these really such a rarity that people have completely forgotten the piece's very existence?

Well, I'm here to remind you that normal pants are alive and well. Don't spend your time complaining about how celeb trends affect your own choices, because there are plenty of options out there. You just have to look. And here, I'll do a bit of looking for you...

Look! Urban Outfitters! Nordstrom! GAP! That took about three minutes of my time (and Google). So, come on. The pants aren't exactly hard to find, so no one really as any excuse for dressing in pants so high they enhance the belly or so low they enhance the lack of appropriate underwear. It's time to go back to the happy medium.

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You know you want it: karate jeans

Anne Metz — 2007-07-12T13:46:00 00:00

Filed under: Remember When, Jeans and Denim, Celebrity Style

People are funny, aren't they? No matter how well you know someone, inevitably he or she will drop some bomb that manages to completely floor you.

The reason I bring this up is that about a week ago my boyfriend -- who is, by the way, much more of a lover than a fighter -- revealed that he used to take karate lessons when he was a kid.

At first I didn't believe him. But lo and behold, after few hilarious crescent kicks in our living room, I started to come around if for no other reason than to hear more about his days in the strip mall dojo of Williamsburg, Virginia.

His latest tidbit involves something called karate jeans. (Yes, fashion fans, karate jeans.)

They may look like your regular Levi's, but if you look closely -- yes, I'm asking you to look closely at Chuck Norris' crotch -- you will see that karate jeans are designed with a hidden gusset that gives the wearer a full range of leg movement making them perfect for on-the-street karate moves.

If you're anything like me then you're probably wondering what a person would need a pair of karate jeans for in the first place. Well, I'll just tell you what my boyfriend told me when I asked him the same question: "You know, in case I ever needed to drop a roundhouse kick on some baller in the parking lot of the bowling alley."

Uh, yeah. And by the way, what's this about being in the parking lot of a bowling alley?

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Can a FannyPack bring SexyBack?

Anne Metz — 2006-10-25T17:48:00 00:00

Filed under: Bags and Purses, Accessories, Remember When

Remember when fanny packs were the height of fashion? If you are having a hard time shuffling through the dusty Rolodex in your mind, I'll give you a hint: it was during the Reagan administration. The Reagan years might be over, but it seems that the fanny pack has crept it's nylon way back into the fashion scene.

But thankfully, the new fanny pack enjoys a few choice design elements. Instead of being cut from icky, fluorescent nylon fabric, these bags are made from soft, Italian leather or fine fabric. And unlike the fanny packs of yore, the new incarnation totally eliminates the bag bulge by sitting flat against the body. And just to reiterate the fact that these accessories aren't your average German-tourist-at-the-Grand-Canyon-circa-1987, these bags also have a new name. Call them "waist packs", "body wallets" or even the truly anesthetized "belt bags."

Are you interested? If you are, Gucci, Prada and Marc Jacobs all have the luxe versions this season.

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Remember when: Outback Red

Anne Metz — 2006-09-28T10:48:00 00:00

Filed under: Remember When

In a time long ago, in a shopping mall far, far away, there was a store called The Limited, and it sold a brand known as "Outback Red".

Outback Red shirts were long-sleeved tees, with three little buttons in front and a very conspicuous "Outback Red" logo at the scruff of the neck in back. Every girl between the ages of 8 and 16 had several of them -- remember this was the mid-to-late 80s, and with Members Only jackets and Keds on the wane, something had to come up into the void.

What this brand ever had to do with the Australian outback remains unclear to me. What is clear is that the Outback Red brand, like so much of the 80s, has virtually disappeared from memory.

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Remember when: the Michael Jackson jacket

Anne Metz — 2006-09-26T17:36:00 00:00

Filed under: Style icons, Remember When

Whatever you may think of Michael Jackson (the hypobaric chamber, the cosmetic surgery, the baby-dangling, etc.), you can't dispute that, in a more innocent era, the man had a lot of stylistic pull.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the so-called Michael Jackson jacket, red leather jacket with silver mesh venting at the shoulders. This jacket, for me, defines the mid-80s. First, everybody saw the jacket in the video for "Beat It" (still one of the greatest videos ever). Then everybody saw it in the video for "Thiller". Then -- miraculously, it seemed! -- it was available for retail purchase.

Needless to say, everybody -- or nearly everybody who listened to pop music, at least -- had one. And, lucky for us, all of these jackets have been put away, burned and/or donated.

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Remember when: Timbuk2 messenger bags

Anne Metz — 2006-09-19T10:12:00 00:00

Filed under: Bags and Purses, Accessories, Remember When

Long ago, in the days before everybody and their brother rolled with a messenger bag, even before bike messenger extraordinaire Puck was on (and then voted off) MTV's The Real World, there was one messenger bag that everybody had to have: a black Timbuk2.

Sure, you may have gotten around town on a fixed-gear bike, and maybe you even wore an obscure Italian cycling cap with the brim flipped up, but without a Timbuk2 you were nothing. Straight out of the mean streets of San Francisco's financial district they came, and these bags took no prisoners.

Okay, so maybe these days you can order your own custom Timbuk2, and even Lands End makes a messenger bag. And, okay, perhaps the anti-establishment chic of the messenger bag is gone. But you can still go old school with a simple black Timbuk2.

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Remember when: Swatch watches

Anne Metz — 2006-08-14T12:07:00 00:00

Filed under: Accessories, Jewelry, Remember When

Back in the awesome 80s, one of the coolest things you could own (or at least that's what they say on VH1's "I love the 80s" ) was a Swatch watch.

People often assume that the word Swatch is a contraction of the words "Swiss Watch." But it's not -- Swatch is supposedly the shortened version of "Second Watch," which actually describes what the company intended to do with the line when it was first introduced in 1983. Swatches were supposed to be literally your second watch (and sometimes your third, fourth, fifth or sixth) -- the casual one or ones you wore on weekends when your dress watch seemed slightly out of place.

And because they were relatively cheap, people bought them up feverishly. But the popularity burned up after a few years. Eventually, the Swatch went the way of so many other trends from that decade by disappearing into the tight rolled ether.

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Remember when: Big hair

Anne Metz — 2006-07-25T16:08:00 00:00

Filed under: Remember When, Coiffure

Do you remember when big hair was quite literally huge?

The Big Hair craze of the 1980s has to be one of that decade's most memorable trends. This is saying a lot, of course, since the 1980s brought us tight-rolled jeans, Garbage Pail kids and Slim Goodbody.

Things were just different back in the 1980s - there were two Germanys, Reagan was president, people drank Pabst Blue Ribbon in an utterly unironic way, and when it came to hair, bigger was always better.

There was Poison...

There was Bon Jovi...

There was Van Halen...

And they all had the same styling secret: Rave hairspray and a teasing comb.

The incomparable size of 80s big hair had everything to do with teasing. Musical tastes aside, it's hard not to be impress with what those rockers put themselves through everyday.

To get that distinctive look, start by spraying all of your hair with a thick dousing of Rave hairspray. Once your hair starts to dry, take a fine tooth-comb and run it backwards from tip to root. This motion creates tiny knots, which give your hair great volume and 80s rocker street cred.

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Remember When: fat shoelaces

Anne Metz — 2006-07-21T15:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Accessories, Casual wear, Shoes, Sporty wear, Vintage wear, Remember When

Some things were just meant to be together:

June Carter and Johnny Cash
Champagne and strawberries
Popping and locking

...and Chuck Taylors and fat laces.

Back in the day, this was how all the cool kids rolled. I had a pair of white Chucks with some neon green laces that were at least an inch wide. And yes, my lacing style could be conservatively called "double helix."

I make no apologies. It was what you had to do.

What happened to them? In general, I think the fat shoelace/Chuck Taylor thing went the way of Cyndi Lauper. As for my own Chuck Taylor/shoelace combo, the white hi-tops turned a dingy shade of grey pretty quickly, but the laces are still holding strong.

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