While my parents were here for my Dad’s 70th birthday earlier this month, we decided to take a train ride from LA to Sacramento to visit my mom’s sister. It would be my mom’s first train ride ever and she got as excited as I get at a CHANEL sale. Which is very.
So here they are at Union Station in downtown LA with my niece Z:
We take Amtrak’s Coast Starlight route, which actually would take you all the way to Seattle. Now I’ve had my fair share of train rides around this planet of ours, some with luxurious overnight compartments and others with livestock (please don’t ask; I’m still trying to repress those memories), and I’d have to rate this train pretty high up there for comfort. My favorite place on the whole train is the observation deck,
where you could plug in your gadgets (ahem, another gratuitous shot of a handbag)…
and where you’d have to claim your seat early on to enjoy these views as the train worms itself along the coastline:
These are dolphins that are way too fast for my camera when we stop near Santa Barbara:
But California is so much more than its beaches…
Unfortunately, once the sun calls it in around 4:30pm,
there’s not much left to do other than to raid the onboard dining cabins. My suggestion is to pack your own picnic basket with better food and a good movie or book on your tablet if you are taking one of these long train rides. And by long I mean 13 whopping hours to our final destination (it would take only 6 hours to drive from LA to Sacramento). So it’s 2am by the time we get picked up at the station by my aunt,
who’s the mom to this little guy named Mordechai and my new “lap” bff:
Trains are a great way see this huge country of ours if you have a lot of time and patience to spare. And if you don’t mind the person sitting next to you (moi) asking Are we there yet?
Tags: Amtrak, Coast Starlight, Sacramento, Santa Barbara
One of my favorite places in the world is right here in my backyard, so whenever I have visitors, we always head to Griffith Park to check out the hiking trails and Observatory.
On this sunny day back in early December of 2010, there were tons of kids at the Observatory on a field trip…
including this one (!)…
and we all got to enjoy the tremendous grounds just below the Hollywood sign:
Even though I didn’t get to tinker around with the telescopes,
I did manage to learn a few things about the stars and planets around us–including the fact that I’m actually not an Aries anymore…
Once we filled up on food for the brain, we headed outside to work up an appetite for tonight’s big dinner. Up here on these many trails, it is easy to see why we put up with mudslides, earthquakes, and traffic jams in exchange for this perfect LA Day at Griffith Park…
We hiked for over an hour, but there was not enough time to make it to the Hollywood sign. Yet the uphill climb…
was enough to clear our conscience for this night’s buffet at the Staples Center during the NBA game between the Spurs and the Clippers:
My Spurs were humiliated that night after only bringing their C game to LA. I might have to burn this shirt 
!
Tags: Clippers, Griffith Park, LA, Observatory, Spurs, telescope
Well, I took all of your comments and advice to heart and tried on all 7 looks, plus a few other permutations that shall go down nameless in flames. And this, the safest of all in terms of color-coordination, is the look that I chose to wear outside of the house:
No colors or patterns clashing. It’s comfy. Ya, as much as I love looking at editorials, I am pathetically lazy when it comes to dressing up. So getting me into heels and a skirt, especially this unforgiving skirt (note to self: beware of tweed skirts with checked patterns!), is a rare event.
Since we are technically in winter time (though it hit 80F today!), I think I could also throw either of my 05A fringed cardigans over this look:
So, dear readers, I’m sorry I can’t quite get out of my comfort zone yet–lots of neutrals, black, black, and more black–but 2011 is all about escaping that box, so hopefully as we do more of these CC challenges, you will motivate me to wear color!
BTW, I already have another item in my closet that I absolutely adore (translation: would like to be buried in it) but have trouble wearing. So I pet it every once in a while when I pass by it in the closet so it doesn’t think I’ve forgotten about it. I just have no idea how to translate it from runway to real life. Anyway, I think you all have one (or five) of these things in your own wardrobe and know what I mean. So that will be next week’s Couture Counsel entry…
I’ll take you back on the road next time though.
All right, so I’ve read all your comments and held the skirt then shoes up against all my shirts and sweaters and think I can either do something funky with the color or the pattern, but not both at the same time. Professional stylists are very clever with mixing both colors and patterns but I still have to stay true to what I could realistically wear outside of my closet. So here are a few options I’ve pulled together so far…
Look 1: a very safe option with the crinkled gray embellished cotton shirt from JCrew. It’s a no brainer and I like the funky beading along the shirt placket, but it’s not going to win any award for imagination:
Look 2: I thought, well, what if I added something burgundy over Look 1 to play off the burgundy in the shoes? And what if this burgundy item were tweeded and fringed (and sometimes makes me feel like the Michelin Man on my bloated days) to give it yet another layer of texture? Too much mixing of patterns perhaps? Chanel overdrive, you say?
Look 3: Then I reached for more gray stuff, like this fringed t-shirt from last summer…kinda nutty with a totally different type of pattern in the shirt’s tweed fringe, right?
Look 4: When I’m uncomfortable with a color or pattern I have a habit of throwing a solid cardigan over what’s ailing me and pray it all works out. So to temper the mixing of patterns in Look 3, I add a dark gray Prada cardigan over it (no sleeveless look for me till I get back to my workout routine!)…but it’s really a dowdy look:
Look 5: But what if I went with a lighter shade of gray like in this JCrew cardi instead?
Yeah, still dowdy. Gray is gorgeous but it can totally un-cool you.
Look 6: Then I thought, what if I went all casual and wore a GAP chambray button down with it? I’d let my pearl lariat necklace dress it up a bit:
Look 7: In this final attempt, I’m trying to take your advice about color. You’d mentioned blush, green, yellow, aqua and I love all the suggestions with a checked skirt. I’m just scared to mix colors with a patterned skirt! So this is me being bold with one pop of color while keeping everything else toned down:
I’m not sure what these outfits will actually look like on, and as you all already know this, how you carry off a look depends a lot on how comfortable/confident you feel in that particular ensemble. So I’ll go try them on and submit my favorite photo in the next entry. And who knows, maybe inspiration will find me and I can surprise you with a completely different look .
If you’ve ever looked around my home page, you’ve probably seen the Couture Counsel (“CC”) link under the Pages section. One of my 2011 resolutions is to give my blog both a cosmetic makeover and a navigational tuneup so that I could expand/use the CC section as well as make the blog more user-friendly for readers who may want to research some of the places I’ve written about for their own trips. I’ve received many helpful suggestions from readers and can’t wait to begin renovating this blog!
But for today, as a way to introduce something I’d like to feature at the CC section, I’m posing a question to all you fashionistas. When I mentioned yesterday that I always have a problem with how to wear that tweed skirt, I’d like to know how you would complete this look for me. So far I’ve got the skirt, shoes, and bag. But what goes on top? I’ve thought white…but is that too stark given the injection of the burgundy in the shoes? I don’t feel right wearing a black top with those shoes…but I don’t have a pair of solid grey heels, so let’s pretend it’s the only pair of shoes I have that remotely go with this skirt. And here’s a close up of the black/white tweed fabric and the shade of grey on the trims:
Questions, questions…you see where I’m going with this.
So basically, your mission in this feature is to take the specific key items I provide–skirt, shoes, bag–
and help me find the right top to finish the look. Hopefully with your comments, I will be able to find something you suggest in my closet and then I’ll post the finished look in a later entry. And if this turns out to be a fun feature, I’ll be asking you to submit your own questions so that the rest of us armchair stylists can give you our five cents.
I’ll be here in my closet, waiting for your couture counsel…
Tags: Couture Counsel
