Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Saw you at Daddy Likey on Wednesday. You smiled. Coat shopping sometime?

I realized the other day that I get the same fuzzy feeling reading fashion blog comments as I do when I read missed connections. Just in case you're not familiar with missed connections (I wasn't until a few years ago), allow me to explain. So, say you're a hipster in the big city, and you go to an alternative coffee shop and order your organic fat-free latte, and you look over at one of the tables and there's a totally hot hipster girl wearing owl-rimmed glasses reading Sartre, and she looks at you and smiles, but you're too scared to go talk to her, so you kick yourself in the ass for the rest of the day until finally you go home and submit a missed connections ad to craigslist or your local hipster paper, and here's what you write:

M4W, OrganiCoffee, Saturday morning
You: dark hair, glasses, hemp pants, thoughtful, reading Sartre.
Me: dark hair, glasses, tight jeans, ordered organic fat free latte, clutching Kafka paperback.
You smiled at me; intrigued, but I didn't follow through. Discuss existentialism over dinner?

Anyway, back to my long-forgotten point: if you read the missed connections section of a paper or website you'll see the vast variation of types of people that others think are beautiful. You'll see people wanting everyone from "brunette plus-sized beauty at the grocery store" to "dreadlocked street dancer" to "Ben Stein lookalike." I love looking through them because it underscores how different we all are and how there's someone for everyone (which totally disproves my junior high thesis that I would die cold and alone since I didn't look like Britney Spears) and how even Ben Stein can spark a passionate tingling in the loins.

I get the same tingly (not Ben Stein tingly, that's different) there's-something-for-everyone feeling when I look at fashion blogs and see the wide variety of love and hate comments for all the items featured. Someone will say "Oh my god that blue dress is so ugly it should be burned and its ashes buried even though another ugly dress would probably sprout from the soil in its place" and then someone else will say "Ooohh that blue dress is so pretty!"

So today, to celebrate individuality, missed connections, fashion blogs, and Ben Stein loin tingles, here are some coats I would never pick out for myself (I'm so not hatin', they're just not for me) that might totally be your thing:

Mike & Chris, $322, girlshop.com

Mackage, $495, girlshop.com

Coffee Shop, $68, nordstrom.com

Searle, waaaayy expensive, nordstrom.com

$78.50 on sale, Delias.com

12 comments:

Ivy Frozen said...

My creative writing teacher got me into Missed Connections on Craig's list....

Anonymous said...

ohhh I'm going to check the Missed Conncentions thing out!!! hehe.
I don't luv any of these coats - the white one is ok... but I probably wouldn't buy them.

Eli said...

Oh my gosh those are all ugly...okay theyre not, okay they kinda are. The green one is nice, in a bathrobey kind of way.

Tasbeeh said...

I like the coffee shop one, but i'd never have the guts to wear it. plus, i live in LA. where I am even going to find the weather?

check out postsecret.com

Anonymous said...

Um...I like them all. Well, not so much the Delia's one and maybe not the mackage one. I really like the first, though.

Chanel (nbr5) said...

Wow, missed connections... people really do that? I'm sooo sheltered...

Anyways, back to the coat topic, out of all of these coats, the Coffee Shop one is the only one I like. I like the colors in it, the earthtone beiges and browns, along with the black and light blue, all the colors make it more versatile. I like anything that I can pair with a bunch of different crap I already have in my closet, and this coat would work nicely.

And the price is nice too.

SHOEGAL said...

Over here we call it the 'I Saw You' column. I like all the coats except the first one. Love the check Coffeeshop one!

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the first one! - that totally worked, see how I love the 1st one whilst Shoegal doesn't? Winona you're so clever.

Anonymous said...

I am so not into plaid, especially on a coat, but that one from Nordstrom has me experience a brief case of the "OOHH"s. I dunno! I scared! I gotta go to see what's wrong with me.

Anonymous said...

i have never heard of missed connections either-thats a really cool thing, you are so right about fashion, it is so different for everyone. with that said, the jackedt from mackage is to die for! I want it so bad, been trying to find a variation of it somewhere for a little bit cheaper. BTW, love this blog!!

Anonymous said...

See, I usually have the Nelson from Simpsons reaction to missed connection (which I used to read on Seattle's craigslist.) My version of 'Ha HA,' was wondering why all of the emo boys of the world don't just, I don't know talk to the cute girl reading Sartre. But maybe I'm just crazy. Plus, I like the Delia's coat. I wouldn't set the others on fire but they don't do anything for my loins.

Fiona M said...

I love "I saw you", but it is filled with couples leaving each other notes in it, which is rather upsetting for the poor singles looking to recreate that moment of non-connection!

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