Zara

Ay Jax

Today, I thought I would share two of my favorite places to eat in Jacksonville, Florida with you. I spent all last summer working there, so I’m getting kind of nostalgic, and had to visit my favorites when I went back to St. Augustine last week.

Chamblin’s Uptown

The socialite cousin of Chamblin’s Bookmine, this bookstore-cum-coffee shop-makeshift lunch destination is simultaneously one of the most bustling and calm in the city. Located at 215 N. Laura street right on the city square, smack in the middle of downtown Jacksonville, it’s an oasis of art, literature, and oversize cookies at your fingertips. Best of all, if you forget your book, they have plenty to choose from, and a liberal coffee selection on the cafe side.

2. Bistro Aix

The closest Jacksonville gets to France, Bistro Aix has the smell and warmth of a boulangerie and the wine menu of fine Parisian dining. Complete with a wood fired oven and salmon smoked in-house, pizzas the likes of the one below come topped with caviar at the most affordable price this side of San Marco. Adjoined is Bar X, where you can soak in fashionably low Deco lighting with a Death in the Afternoon even Hemingway would approve of. Afterwards? It’s off to the nearby shops and boutiques lining San Marco’s beautiful neighborhood as the sea’s waves peak at you, just a block away.

Outfit Details:
Blazer: Zara
Pants: Givenchy
Shoes: H&M
Bag: Kate Spade

School Day Blues

School has been overwhelming lately, and it’s made me a bit nostalgic to write about something other than law. I’ve had this post on queue for a while — Jack and I actually shot it last year during our first Breakfast at Tiffany’s attempt (failed but fun nonetheless — here was the better result). And he’s been such a dear helping me learn LaTeX, I thought I’d come out of my nest to post it as a sort of thank you for all the work he’s done (and a reminder it shouldn’t go to waste). For the vibe, think sort of Carey Mulligan in An Education…

P.S. I don’t encourage smoking, and — Isn’t he just the cutest?

Boldly Go.

Happy Friday! Here’s a burst of color to make your day pop. I’ve been surprised that Florida is a bit more conservative than originally expected, so I’ll have to share my more ostentatious looks here, rather than stunning the office with my odes-to-Grecian-bygones shirts. I’m often scared to do the pencil skirt look, because I think unless you’re a waif, you always end up looking like you’re carrying your lunch in a front hamper. But I love my new Tabitha Simmons shoes, and they are so hard to match that I have decided to take them as inspiration and step forward boldly today (in the skirt- waif or not!). I hope in every situation you can do the same (and if not, at least look forward to the weekend..).

The culprit

Eccentric Glamour: Live From San Francisco!

Welcome to the Eccentric Glamour link-up, a forum specially designed to get together and showcase forgotten, yet fabulous articles in our closets! I’m excited to bring you these vintage-inspired shots from Sutro Baths (and the surrounding park in San Francisco). The views from the hike are pretty stunning, so I’ll let them speak for themself… kind of like my outfit. 😉

Outfit Details: Hat: Vintage | Dress: Dear Creatures | Gloves: Vintage | Shoes: Zara Trafaluc

Sutro Baths (pictured in the background below) have an interesting, if slightly tragic history (after the collapse of a specialized railroad line-now hiking trail), which you can read more about here. But trust me, they were all the rage in the late 19th century. I was kind of obsessed with the fairy tale splendor of the surrounding trees…

Don’t Forget!

If you’d like to regularly contribute, please take a moment to follow my blog (links can be found on the sidebar).
Please confine posts to those which showcase some spectacular article of clothing. It doesn’t have to be crazy, but just a bit in line with our theme of “Eccentric Glamour” (although choosing one half or the other of that mantra will also suffice). However, if you choose to post, please provide a link back to the Eccentric Glamour link-up somewhere in your post.
Try to check out a few other bloggers posts to build inspiration and community!

Shared to Style Crone’s Hat Attack Link-up!

California Here I Come: Napa

I’m excited to show you some of the pictures from my California adventure! Some of you may have noticed my three week hiatus, a period over which I was decidedly not learning how to photoshop (so sorry for that attempt yesterday, but it got the point across with a little overzealous sponging). While I had the best intentions of keeping up the blog over Spring Break, I found myself wandering around San Francisco and working on short stories instead, and I couldn’t help but let the mood take me. However, amidst my aesthetic stupor I managed to squeeze in a few field trips about which I couldn’t be more excited. Enter Napa.

One of my best friends from high school just moved out to the area to do “science” at a winery. It seems only natural if one travels 500 miles across the country to dial up everyone in the immediate vicinity, so entirely because of the pressing weight of the social duties falling upon me, I called him to set up a wine tasting together. We had a wonderful day, punctuating tastings with a cute little French patisserie where I had a delicious sea salt caramel macaroon (and could really call myself bourgeoisie). It also let me embrace some Edgar Allen Poe American Romanticism, so here’s my Mysterious Macabre Villainess, naturally standing in a wine cellar (soon to be the home of a someone buried alive?).

I wanted to look classy, modern, yet understated (don’t want to look like you’re trying at a wine tasting), so I paired a couple of subdued pinks with ostrich feathers to bring just enough glam. I tried these high tops for a bit of modern nonchalance. We mixed in my first In-and-Out experience for some real casual elegance at the end of the day. I think Taylor deserves a few well-deserved snaps.

Outfit Details: Necklace: Down the Rabbit Hole (my favorite boutique in St. Augustine that sadly closed. You can find them on Fb here) | Top: Marni | Skirt: Zara | Shoes/Socks: Primark

Wineries Visited: Robert Mondavi and Artesa

Sportif

Fresh out of fashion week, it seems like clothes were continuing with casually baggy elegance. In my opinion, it’s Katherine Hepburn meets the modern era– the longer look, casually sporty, nearly androgynous (just short of Stockholm). To set the mood, I picked “Victory Bar” this 1940’s-esque once-hangout to denizens of sweaty football lovers (or so I imagine) in downtown South Bend. It’s not my most confident pairing, as there’s only so long and flowing you can look at 5’5 without beginning to look like a set of drapes. Then again, with the Sound of Music celebrating its 50th, that might not be so bad?

Buda

The cheapest flight you can find in Europe to Hungary is most likely Hungarian-based Wizz Air. This was my second time flying Wizz Air, and I haven’t had any complaints either time about the flight itself, but this time, as I was perusing the baggage page (cheaper flights are always crafty in how the term things, so as to charge the unwary), I realized that a regular piece of cabin baggage would cost me an extra 14 pounds (both ways). Challenge accepted. I decided I would fit all of my clothes (and laptop) for my 2 and a half day trip into this Kate Spade bag, which would fit neatly under the seat.

St. Stephen’s Basilica* was absolutely stunning. I would definitely count it among the top 5 churches I’ve ever visited. An added easter egg is the trek to the top, a journey well worth the roughly two dollars I paid. Turns out, the sun sets at like 3:30/ 4:00 at this time of year in Hungary, so about the time we went up, the entire city donned a dusky glow that made this gothic city even more Romantic-looking.

I think that I almost had a heart attack when I crossed the Chain Bridge and saw a real live funicular. Clearly after seeing the Grand Budapest Hotel, I had some silent expectations I couldn’t begin to hope were real (probably beginning with a funicular). Our compartment was named Margit and she was a gem!

*Even though this post is named Buda, St. Stephen’s is actually in Pest. Shared to The Fashion Canvas.

Sunday in the Park

What could be lovelier on a Sunday afternoon than to stroll in the park, visiting Roman ruins in a historic cathedral town? I bring you St. Albans, a gorgeous village thirty minutes outside of London, named after England’s first Christian martyr, birthplace of John Churchill (the first Duke of Marlborough, and as you may remember my previous post, victor of the Battle of Blenheim) and home to the only existing medieval clocktower in England (which was used as a semaphore tower in the Napoleonic wars). Yet the most epic sight of St. Albans is probably St. Albans Cathedral, a Gothic monolith, legendarily built with stones taken from Roman ruins rolled up the (long) hill from Verulamium Park and completed in 1089. It was here that the first draft of the Magna Carta was written, and it was once the largest cathedral in England! We arrived around 2:00 in the afternoon (Blackfriars to St. Albans is about a 30 minute ride for ~10 pound return fare). It’s a ten minute walk up to the church through the village area, but on the way you pass through the adorable square (where you will find the clocktower). Once there, you follow the signs and slip down a side street, and all the sudden the Cathedral comes out of nowhere! We were surprised we couldn’t see it towering over the horizon. Once you’ve found it, you wonder how you could have missed it! It takes a full five minutes to walk around the whole thing! It sits at the top of a hill which slopes down to the Park. There you can enjoy the company of weeping willows, frantic children and Roman ruins alike—we certainly did.

New

Old

Sights inside the Cathedral:

To Verulamium Park (and a stop for ice cream)!

Remnants of a Roman Town

What I Wore:

Hat: antique store find
Fur collar: estate sale gem ($7.00!!)
Blouse: Gap
Cardigan: H&M
Belt: Zara
Pencil Skirt: Zara
Wallet/ Purse: Fossil
Shoes: Stubbs and Wootton

Moor From the North: Bronte Country

There is a small place in the heart of every 19th-century British literature devotee that longs to walk across a moor. What is a moor? we ask. No one really knows, but we have a vague idea— it’s how Elizabeth won Darcy. If you walk around one for long enough, you might find Heathcliff, or if you’re particularly unlucky, the dread Count Fosco looming around Blackwater. They seem to be common places, but are rumored to have particularly bad weather and a lot of fog through which people trek for miles somewhere between early breakfast and tea time.

I had expressed my long curiosity of these mysterious places to my friend Olivia, who I met during my time at Oxford. It was then that I found out she lived in northern England, near the Lake District. Being a fellow enthusiast of English literature, she graciously invited me to visit, on what was to be rather a pilgrimage to the towns of Great British authors (Wordsworth! The Brontes! Beatrix Potter!). To get ready for our adventure, Liv packed me a care package full of Northern food. I was converted by Rhubarb and Clotted Cream Swirls.

Yorkshire Tea and Lancashire Cheese!

Our first stop was Bronte Country, or the village of Haworth in Yorkshire to see the Haworth parsonage (where all three sisters lived and in which Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre were written). However, along the way we made a small detour into Rose & Co., and old school apothecary (and the background in the pictures), and a few vintage shops where I procured the navy velvet turban I’m wearing.

Rose & Co.

Downtown Haworth

Pasture behind the Bronte’s House

Bronte’s Creepy Parson-side Graveyard (which most likely poisoned their water source, and served as the fountain of Gothic writing)

What I’m Wearing:
Hat: Vintage
Dress: Le Cremieux (available at Dillards)
Blazer: Pendelton Wool
Bonjour Bag: Zara
Tights: Wolford
Boots: Hunter

I had a wonderful trip, and I can’t thank Olivia enough for the wonderful experience. Further, a warm shout-out to Simon (I didn’t forget you) for driving us all around the Lake District (and everywhere else) for a glimpse of Wordsworth’s house.

Worth it.

Haiti Part 2, Roughing with Pastels

I think it’s becoming too obvious, so I might as well out with it. When in the Caribbean, I have slyly drawn upon some colonial fashion. I know, I know it’s spitting in the eye of what I stand for, but there’s something about those fresh, cool billowy fabrics that seems so appealing when you’re standing in 98 degree heat. That being said, I left my pith helmet at home (along with my monocle), but today’s outfit definitely pays homage to a French lady standing on her veranda somewhere.

Marj (my roommate) and I sharing tea at Catholic Relief Services

We went to visit Catholic Relief Services, and went on-site to see the new Haitian hospital they are building. After the earthquake, the original was only left with two buildings of the entire complex standing. Again, it was really too bad no one knew anything about engineering. I had mixed feelings about the project. On the one hand, the design was really impressive. It allowed the hospital to expand and theoretically provide services that were inaccessible before the earthquake. On the other hand, expanding the hospital to the planned magnitude significantly increased costs. The representative from CRS admitted they didn’t know where they would get the money to keep it running. Hurricane money has trickled up significantly in the last 5 years, ever careening into the next natural disaster. While state-of-the-art facilities are a blessing, I wonder if perhaps the people wouldn’t be better off with something sustainable… Is that too practical? On the other hand, maybe “if you build it, they will come.” It’s a bit of an experiment which only time will solve.

On the whole, it was exciting to see all the programs CRS has going in Haiti. Little did I know when I chose Notre Dame, that within a year I would be posing as a poster child for any Catholic organization, much less a worldwide nonprofit!

Shirt: Vintage (estate sale)
Pants: Zara (bought off Poshmark for a song)
Sunglasses: Urban Outfitters
Scarf: Talbots
Earrings: Gift
Bag: Givenchy (by way of Ebay)
Watch: Target
Shoes: Bass

A quick ode to these shoes. I would recommend that any ardent traveller get an equivalent. These babies have gone with me from Amsterdam to the Azores, Ireland to India, and now Haiti. Because they are leather they are super comfortable. I prefer them to tennis shoes (which only serve to remind me how nauseously American I am). They are good for climbing rocks or hunting tigers (hunting as in trying to spot). In my opinion, they are a more fashionable, durable alternative to Keds with the added advantage that the dirtier they get, the better they look.

The Clothesline

Style for people blowing in the wind