Wednesday, August 1, 2007

The Little Tramp, but Not in the Lindsay Lohan Type of Way

Whenever people post photos of inspirational outfits, it's always seems to be of lank girls clad in gray and skinny jeans, or of Mary Kate, perhaps the original lank girl in clad in gray and skinny jeans (though for awhile she was doing this sort of whacked out/goth/Stevie Nicks thing that I sometimes found kind of endearingly over-the-top.) Why does inspiration for people who are "into clothes" always seem to come from things that are already trendy?

Anyway, I recently saw Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, a movie filmed in 1931. While I usually love the women's clothing in these movies (and it was indeed adorable), I also kind of felt the urge to dress like Chaplin in his tramp persona, with his fitted plaid waistcoat, baggy pants, too-tight cutaway jacket, and little cravat. (Plus the thick black eyeliner that men always wore in old movies! With a three piece suit, no less!) I love how everything looked battered but went together so well and fit in such a specific way- and there's something so crumbling and dandyish about this look, which I love. Not to be all
"derelicte"/upper middle class, but come on, even the homeless used to have a better sense of aesthetics.

Admittedly, I don't think I could pull off this look, and think my general fear of vests won't help, but I did remember I'd saved some awesome pictures of Shalom Harlow in a Chaplin-inspired photoshoot. She looks a lot awesomer than if she were wearing a saggy American Apparel t-shirt and those oversized glasses everyone has that fill me with rage, you know?



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