I found your wedding cardi

Zara sequins via Wit & Delight

Also: If you click over to Zara's main page, the partially-Patti-inspired lookbook/short is pretty excellent. (Even if Patti would never wear pumps with bows.)

absent friends and wedding grumpiness

Dear ESB

I have one month and one day to go until our wedding.

Three of my closest, dearest, most wonderful friends will not be coming. They all have excellent reasons - they live on opposite ends of the planet and can't afford to come blah blah blah.

My rational head KNOWS that i am not actually MARRYING any of my best friends, and all that will matter on the W-Day is my fiance is there and he says 'I do'. BUT my rational head isn't getting much of a look in at the moment, and I keep dwelling on the fact that none of them will be there and getting a bit miserable. SO I need a healthy dose of your beautifully mean snark to shake me out of this gloom.

Thanks everso

XXXXX

*****

Oh, man.


I can't snark on demand.

Here's what I've got: Allow yourself to be sad about your friends. Wallow, if you need to. Then BUCK THE FUCK UP, make yourself a martini, and traipse around the house in your wedding shoes. You're getting married!!

In keeping with the fashion idol theme: Darren McDonald Captures An Homage to Patti Smith for Helmet Magazine #3 via Fashion Gone Rogue

If you had to choose three fashion idols....

....in order to play the would X wear this? game.... Who would they be?

I'd go Keith Richards, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lisa Mayock. (Plus Patti Smith for hair, obvs.)

I am still obsessed with Lisa M's genius running shorts/platform wedge combination. Maybe I should allow myself the occasional weird eBay purchase after all?

Photos: Keith (photog unkown), Charlotte G by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Lisa M by Kelly Stuart for Elle

WHAT???

Patti Smith by Lynn Goldsmith (an outtake from the cover shoot for Easter, 1978) via TIME

I really should have saved this photo for the day I finally retire the blog. Does it not perfectly sum up All That Is East Side Bride?

Blog of the Week(ish): Wearing the Pants

Obviously.

Photos of Bianca Jagger (1975), Patti Smith + Robert Mapplethorpe (1969), and Katharine Hepburn (1950's) via this goldmine.

Not all the photos on the blog are vintage, but man do I love the vintage ones.

Thanks, Anon! All you anons are killing it today.

Dear ESB: I don't like my dress

When I first started wedding planning, my grandmother offered me her dress to wear. It was too big for me, but it is a lovely old dress, simple and vintage, which is definitely my style, so I was very excited about it. Then my seamstress friend offered to alter it for free. Last week I got the altered dress sent it straight to the dry cleaners to turn it back from yellow to white. It was there for a week, and now, three and a half weeks before my wedding, I got it back.

And I don't like it.

Oh, it's nice enough. The silhouette is really pretty and it whitened up beautifully but-- I feel kind of awkward in it. It doesn't fit quite how it should, and the long sleeves make me feel really prim, and I feel sort of constricted in it. So my problem is this: I don't really have the time to find a new wedding dress, and even if I did, I'd feel like it was kind of a kick in the teeth to my grandmother and my friend who put all the free labour into it. I could try to get it further altered-- but can I do that in three weeks? Should I just live with it? Should I go on a panicked search to find a new dress? Maybe you just do feel kind of awkward in a wedding dress because it's a gown and when else do you ever wear a gown? I don't know. But I feel miserable.

Any advice?

*****

Ditch the dress. Please.

Call in sick. Drive to Barneys or Bergdorf’s or Nordstrom or ANYWHERE and try on everything they’ve got.

(Photo: Steven Sebring courtesy of The New York Times)

I'm sorry, did you want a blog post?

All I've got is a big fat eff this. And I thought there was no way February wouldn't be an improvement on January.

But cevd is coming to town tomorrow, and she and I and the lovely Celia are taking a trip to the ban.do studio to meet Jen and Jamie, so that'll be fun. Unless it's not fun. Unless they all turn out to hate me and they say things like "you're much quieter than I expected" or "you're not as cool as I expected" or "are you sure you're ESB?" (Cevd has already met me, THANK GOD, so at least she knows what she's in for.)

Patti Smith via FFFFOUND!

DIY Haircut

Or, rather, do-it-with-your-friend haircut.

Clare of The Style Diaries enlisted her best friend Cindy (who is not trained as a stylist) to chop off all her hair. The result? Slammin.

You may remember I have DIY haircut fantasies a la Patti Smith. Or Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. For now, there's no way I'm letting go of Alexis. But maybe I'll train H when we run off to Barcelona or Berlin or wherever.

An ode to my stylist

Who totally gets it when I reference Patti Smith and ask for a cut that looks like I did it myself. Except, you know, amazing. (Alexis coined the term "box cutter chic" while I was sitting in her chair.)

Who listens patiently while I obsess about the tiniest hair issues. (Is it too straight across in the back...? This piece is curving under when it should be sticking out... It's not "sleeping on" as well as the haircut you gave me two haircuts ago...)

And who gave me, when I stopped in for a bang trim, what can only be construed as a badass effing HAIRCUT. No charge.

Photo of Patti Smith and her stylist Robert Mapplethorpe found here. When I complained that Patti always looked so good when she cut her own hair, Alexis brought me down to earth, assuring me that Robert would have been the one doing the cutting.

for the rebellious bride

These shoes come in white. And then there is the dress. So. Rad.*

Ann Demeulemeester says "Good fashion for me is like rock 'n' roll - there's always a little rebellion in it." And Patti Smith (who else?) is her rock 'n' roll muse.

p.s. Jamie, why on earth would you think I disapprove of cowboy boots? Have you seen Patti Smith?

*I've decided to stop using the word "awesome." I don't know when I picked it up, and it's embarrassing, frankly. I mean, I grew up in northern california.

wide legs are really here, people

And pleats. I'm not sure how I feel about pleats.*

But this putty pair by Duskin (also available in sand and black) almost has me convinced. They're slammin in a slouchy, I-don't-give-a-f*ck way that I truly appreciate.

It requires a lot of effort to dress like you don't give a fuck.**

Soon to be for sale at Steven Alan.

*They give me nightmarish flashbacks to the first "real job" I had working for an nyc press agent in 1996. I did learn to write a decent press release. And I got to meet the amazing, chain smoking Uta Hagen (and her toy poodle, GB). But I also spent a lot of time walking my boss's mentally imbalanced mutt. And after I quit I found out he was in litigation for throwing a stapler at a former employee.

**Unless you are Patti Smith. She's not faking it.

I already need a bang trim

I'm going to the salon, Patti. I realize that's not very punk rock.

But in those broke-as-sh*t williamsburg days when I used to cut my own hair, it never looked punk rock. It just looked sort of lopsided. I've learned it takes a skilled stylist to give me just the right dishevelled look.

In these broke-ish echo park days, I will happily shop for vintage/resale/thrifted clothes. I will eat out less often. I will finally get a library card. But I will not compromise on haircuts. (After all, I wear my hair every day.)

I need to catch this doc, b/t/w. Where the hell have I been?

p.s. I will admit I'm a little obsessed with Patti Smith. It's 70% style/30% the whole Sam Shepard thing.

p.p.s. Dream Weaver? Really??

(1978 photo by Robert Mapplethorpe found here)

this makes me love my haircut

Patti Smith in Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth, 1971. (Here they are together.)

Photo from here.