For those who thought Medusa was just misunderstood.

What Neiman Marcus said:

• Fur Hat: Bucket style. Price: $495.00
• Fur-Trim Cashmere Cape: No front closure. 100% cashmere. Price: $3995.00
Both, camel. Fox fur (China) trim. Imported.

What they should have said:

Did you find yourself cheering for Cruella DeVille's cause by the end of 101 Dalmations? Have you always thought of Medusa as a sympathetic character? When your friends jeered the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia, did you stand up for her, saying that there's a certain grace in being an evil bitch who enforces never-ending winter and those kids deserved what they got, damnit? Well, if you've been searching for your own ensemble to capture that classic female villain look, for the outfit that perfectly complements your practiced hand on hips stance and I-seriously-might-turn-you-into-a-rat-right-now stare, search no further than this fabulous fur cape and hat set! Instill fear in everyone you meet for a mere $4500! Money well spent to watch acquaintances cower and cry, "Please don't turn me to stone, ma'am, please!" And really, isn't that what fashion's all about?

Farmboy, fetch me that incredibly expensive dress.

I watched The Princess Bride for the 7000th time yesterday, and (as always) it's greatly impacted my life in a number of ways:

1. Please refer to me as Princess Buttercup from now on.
2. My boyfriend and I tried to go for a jog afterwards but ended up chasing each other around a park screaming, "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!"
3. My boyfriend and I also spent some time drafting out a "If it's Cary Elwes, it doesn't count" clause for our relationship.
4. I am already losing friends over my infuriating overuse of "Inconceivable!"
5. Instead of doing my homework, I spent like nine hours looking for princessy dresses online, like these:

This one's a little gothic, perfect for when I'm mourning the death of my true love at the hands of the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Roberto Cavalli, $3345

But when I find out he's alive, and has actually been posing as the Dread Pirate Roberts for five years, I can finally change into a happy princess dress like this one:

On a different note, is anyone else as bitter as I am that this shade of green has been usurped by the medical scrub industry and therefore, no matter how pretty the garment is, if it's this color you can't help thinking, if just for a second, "Oh that must be for formal surgeries."?
Milly, $385 (wait a second...a three digit price from netaporter? Inconceivable!)

Oops! Forgot that I still have to marry a murderous prince! Better go a little goth again:

Temperly London, $1292

Sometimes a princess has gotta dress down, go a little wild, show a little leg. For those occasions:

Matthew Williamson (my true love), $890

Temperley London, $1292 (this one might be my favorite)

Anna Sui, $426 (Inconceivable! God, that never gets old.)

And finally, an adorable princess dress from Anthropologie, at a sale price that pretty much proves a commenter's lament from yesterday that $300 dresses get marked down to $295:

$189, used to be $248. Oh wow I'm totally jumping for joy at the massive savings.
Harkham

I need to start saving up for all of these dresses immediately so I can start wearing them to school and calling my professors "Farmboy." That would go over really well, I think.

All dresses except the one that's "on sale" are from netaporter.com

It's time to call out Anthropologie.

Don't get me wrong. If the nebulous phenomenon that is my fashion aesthetic somehow transformed into an actual clothing store, it would most likely appear as something quite similar to Anthropologie's endless racks of adorable dresses, soft lacy blouses, and vintage-inspired jackets (but not the gothic-themed bedrooms that dominate their furniture section--I prefer my sleeping quarters more Marilyn Monroe than Marilyn Manson). I'm not exaggerating (and really, have I ever exaggerated on this blog?) when I say I want to buy basically every item in the store.

My problem with Anthro (we're close enough friends that I can call it that) is their sale section. My friend Rachel and I made the mistake of entering the store to browse yesterday without having previously procured a massive inheritance or Powerball jackpot. With each flip of a pricetag, our morale sank lower and lower until we were taking turns holding up $60 tanktops, shrieking, "What a deal!" and laughing in the way that people do when it's the only alternative to sobbing uncontrollably. We spent like twenty minutes stroking this dress and wishing that little Wal-Mart smiley face thing would bounce over and knock a number off the price, but the little bastard never came:


Finally, one of us had the brilliant idea to check out the sale section, and we gleefully cantered across the store in hopes of finding impossibly great deals on impossibly cute things.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

Now, I'd love to hear from Anthropologie shoppers in other cities to see if this is a normal practice, but at least in the Portland location, the sale section is seriously a dank, dark room in the very back of the store. It is the most depressing place you will ever visit, unless of course you've spent time in an underground midieval torture chamber. This place so resembled a dungeon that as I was browsing through the hideous sweaters they'd decided to put on condesale (did that work? like, "condescend" combined with "sale." get it? okay that didn't really work...), I half expected an iron door to drop down and angry vikings to appear outside pointing at us and saying things like, "Exterminate them immediately to cure the wretched disease of poverty!" And to make matters worse, the only thing I could afford, even in the sale dungeon, was this horrible bent-up chunky knit headband that still cost like $25.

I must point out that the sale section on anthropologie.com is high-priced but delightful, with semi-good deals (and by "semi-good deals" I mean "still not even near my price range") on impossibly cute things and no angry vikings in sight, and again, I'm not sure if the sale quarantine is a nationwide occurrence or just a Portland issue. But for good measure, if there's an Anthropologie representative reading this, I'll take the above dress in a size 10 for all my trouble. And a size 6 for Rachel too. On the double now, chop chop!

Barf Bag

Sorry to be so graphic, but this morning I awoke to find my dog had eaten a bird and thrown it up on the front porch. Why in god's name is this relevant on a fashion blog? Well, I was shocked to find that the pile of dog vomit looked exactly like the main beaded section on this Fendi bag:


Who knew that I could have scooped that right up off the porch, attached a Fendi clasp and a rusty chain and sold it to unknowing fashionistas for $2090 a pop? And who knows what luxury brand-inspired creation my dog will regurgitate next? Perhaps tonight she'll eat a shrew and in the morning I'll find a perfectly replicated Chanel 2.55 on the patio? I have to go follow her around the yard now to make sure I don't miss anything.

Fendi Small Beaded B Bag, yes it's seriously $2090, saks.com

Now Girlshop seems cold and unfeeling...

My dear friend Rachel just discovered Azalea, an online boutique with a great selection of amazingly cute clothes and accessories. Behold but a small sampling of their dress collection:

Much raved-about Voom dress, on sale for $76

See by Chloe, very not-on-sale.

MK2K Sweater dress, $165

Soda Blu, $105

Sonia, on sale for $400...good god that's a crappy sale

Julie Brown, $297

Fremont, $105

Corey Lynn Calter, $150

They even have a dress that will make you look exactly like the Little Mermaid when she washes up on the beach naked and has her first outfit put together with some rope by a crab and a seagull:

Please tell me you remember that scene, because I swear, we're talking exact replica here.

Anyway, so right now you're probably thinking, "Welcome to Boringville, population: this blog." Oh, wait, does nobody else think in really lame phrases that were popular twenty years ago? Okay let me try again: So, right now you're probably thinking, "Cute dresses, yeah, but come on, I've seen it all before. Just another online boutique. What's the big deal?"

Let me tell you, my skeptic compadre. If you happen to order something from Azaleaonline.com, not only do you get free ground shipping and supercute clothes, but as my dear friend found out, you also receive, well, this:

Hey Rachel,
Thanks for your order, it has been shipped. I'm glad we were able to get the Voom dress for you! Great choice on the Rachel Pally dress, can you imagine such an elegant dress that is so comfy? Well let me know if I can help you with anything else, talk to you soon!
Anita

As Rachel put it, "It's like I bought a friend!"

A Logical Explanation

This conditioner smells suspiciously good:


The scent evokes such a passionate and visceral reaction in me that I'm inclined to think it's more than just a pleasant Plumeria smell, that perhaps this was the conditioner used by the magical nanny who cared for me when I was a toddler and took me for rides on her friendly dragon sidekick before my parents grew jealous of our bond and banished her from my life, determined to keep her existence a secret for all eternity, but it wasn't in their clever little plan that one day I would discover this conditioner at a natural grocery store, and that every time I opened the bottle I'd be overcome with memories of nuzzling my cherubic face in her hair, giggling and grasping our dragon friend's shimmering scales as we soared over snowcapped mountains and lush, green valleys.

In fact, when I first flipped the cap open and cried, "Oh my god this smells so good!" and ran around the house sticking the bottle in people's faces and yelling "Smell it! Oh my god! Smell it! Isn't it the best thing you've ever smelled in your life??," my dad took a whiff and said, "No, not really."

If that's not proof, I don't know what is.

JASON Natural Sea Kelp & Plumeria Moisturizing Conditioner, vitaminshoppe.com, amazon.com, and tons of other places (And really, don't listen to my dad, it smells incredible)

Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Car Bow

So you know those commercials that show people giving their spouses a set of car keys in some clever manner and/or leading them out to the driveway blindfolded to ultimately unveil a Lexus or Mercedes sitting there with a giant bow on it, and they always make you think, "Where the hell do rich people get those giant car bows? Is there a secret car bow emporium at all luxury car dealership that can be accessed only by pulling the correct book out of a normal-looking bookshelf (after a full credit check, of course), which will then slowly rotate to reveal thousands of giant car bows and a guy named Maurice saying, 'Red is obviously the classic car bow color, but I see you've chosen the red BMW, so let's try to work in some contrast here.'"

I have no idea where they come from (you can go to your local Lexus dealership and pull every damn book out of the bookshelf trying to solve the mystery, but if you don't pass the credit check, you'll just get arrested), but they're putting them on skirts now:

Flores & Flores Ruffle Silk Skirt, $268 (cheaper than a Beamer, at least), nordstrom.com

Fifteen Minutes.

Well, today is basically the biggest day of my life, as Daddy Likey is the featured 15 Minutes of Fame profile on the Iqons website. Every hour on the hour, my profile is shown to the world on the Iqons front page, and great fame and fortune should follow. I invested in a bunch of burlap sacks with "$" printed on them just for the occasion, so I really hope this thing pans out.

If you haven't heard about Iqons yet (I didn't until very recently--my friend Laila gave me the hip tip), it's an online networking site for the fashion industry and the people who love it, a Myspace with way fewer pictures of shirtless sixteen-year-old boys with captions like "You know you wanna hit this ladies LOL", and way more pictures of Marc Jacobs shoes with captions like "You know you wanna hit this ladies LOL."

Despite the inevitable pretentiousness that occurs when you get a bunch of fashion industry people together, I really like the idea behind this site. You'll find tons of familiar bloggers on there as well as designers, writers, artists, photographers, fashion fans, etc. Go ahead and join! You know you want to, and I'll totally be your cyberfriend.

edit: I just tested the link to my profile and found that it was bringing people to a middle-aged French guy's page instead, but it should be fixed now. oops.

Coming Up: Sadism, Fetishism, Wedding Gowns

Today I discovered that wedding dress designers are perhaps the most sadistic people in the world.


I'm not getting married myself, but I volunteered for Brides Against Breast Cancer, which is a very cool organization that accepts donated wedding dresses, sells them at a huge discount, and puts all the profits toward breast cancer research (they do events all over, and you can sign up to help out or find an event here). Anyway, so I was walking around, telling brides they looked gorgeous, putting away dresses and trying not to moan with pleasure everytime I touched a voluminous tulle skirt (my mom passed down to me a passionate love for princessy dresses that borders on fetishism), when a young woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me my size. I told her, and she goes, "Oh! Perfect! Would you mind trying these dresses on for me?"

Since just minutes before I had been standing in the community dressing room, leering jealously at all the women who got to actually put the dresses on instead of subtly stroking them while bringing them back out to the racks, I cried, "Yes!" and grabbed her pile of gowns, making a mad dash for the dressing room in an effort to strip before she revoked her offer (I was the creepiest volunteer ever, I'll be the first to admit). We found a mirror and she explained that she was shopping for her sister, who was getting married on a budget but had to work today (in hindsight, this was really good news--it would have been a little weird if she had just been asking me to try on gowns for her, huh?).

I eagerly took the first option off the hanger and stepped into it. It was really simple and elegant, and in a size bigger than what I normally wear since we'd determined her sister was a bit larger than me. Yet, when we went to zip it, it would only go up a couple inches, gaping open the way too-small clothes do to reveal what I like to call the Bermuda Backfat Triangle. I called my mom over, who was also volunteering, and asked for her services (my mom is the queen of the zipper--I swear she could get John Goodman into size-2 Versace), but when she finally whispered, "It's not gonna go," I knew things were bad.

"Merely a fluke," I nervously thought to myself, and grabbed another gown. This one was even worse. By the time we'd slowly and depressingly worked our way up to the dresses that would zip, I was a full three sizes above what I normally wear. I can blame a small part of this on the fact that I wasn't wearing the customary industrial strength bridal undergarments, but I can blame more of it on sadistic designers: seriously, what the hell are you people thinking??

Let's see how you fare against a barrage of rhetorical questions, you satin-draped self-esteem drainers that call yourselves the wedding gown industry: Why in God's name does it make sense to make a woman feel abnormally fat for her special day? Isn't this the situation where vanity sizing would make the most sense? Why can I go to the Gap for a pair of crappy khaki pants and find that I'm miraculously two sizes smaller, but when I go to try on a gorgeous wedding dress I've inexplicably gained three? Do you feel bad knowing you're the reason that millions of brides subsist on grapefruit and diet coke for months before their marriages, bitchy with hunger at a time they should be gleefully eating chocolate-covered strawberries off their betrothed's chest? How can you be so horrible but make such beautiful things? Stop the insanity!

By the end of the day, had I been a real bride, I'm sad to say I probably would have bought any dress that was even close to my normal size, even if it was five thousand dollars, even if it was this one:

Wow. Well, maybe not this one exactly, but you get the point.

Do tell, my lovely wedded readers, did you have the same sadistic sizing experience? Or was I really that bloated today?

Five Things You Didn't Know About Me, The Future Postmaster General

Well, I've been tagged by a couple lovely fashion blogs to take part in the "Five Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me" epidemic. Basically, I tell you five things about me that I haven't mentioned here before, then I tag five other bloggers to do it too, they tag five other bloggers, and pretty soon we have our own version of one of those scary STD trees that your health teacher would draw on the blackboard in high school before stepping back and saying really solemnly, "And that's how the entire world will get infected with Chlamydia," but we are spreading a lighthearted blog survey instead of an STD, and, well, I'm just gonna drop this metaphor now.

Here we go:

1) Pretty much every morning while I put on my makeup, I listen to "Suddenly I See" and pretend I'm in the opening scene of The Devil Wears Prada.

2) On days that I'm dressed really well, I delight in telling anyone and everyone that I'm a fashion blogger. It goes like this:
Professor calling attendance: Winona?
Me: Umm, yeah, actually I prefer "Fashion Blogger."

And on days that I'm wearing, you know, Adidas trackpants and purple Uggs and my boyfriend's thermal shirt and a giant furry trapper hat, it goes more like this:
My good friend: Great post today, Winona.
Me: What do you mean?
Good friend: I liked your blog post today.
Me: I don't have a blog.

3) I already kind of mentioned this, but I have a major thing for Kelis. I want to be Kelis (I try to talk about my milkshake but it's just really sad). And this is my favorite ensemble in the history of the world:


4) I am a total slob. I like to blame it on my unorganized creative brain, but whatever the reason, I am completely incapable of cleaning. All my attempts at cleaning, tidying, or organizing end with me sitting in the middle of the room up to my neck in a pile of papers and clothes and knick-knacks that I've amassed around myself. For this reason, I bribe my boyfriend to do it for me, and he has to wear a respirator mask to survive the process. I really, really wish I was joking.

5) I know I wrote a post a while back railing against work uniforms, but that doesn't mean I don't harbor a secret and passionate urge to be a postman. I think it would be such a cool job--you get to wear shorts and a little hat, you walk around a neighborhood all day, so you'd have hot legs and get to be outside, everyone would be happy to see you, and you have a chance of becoming the mysterious, powerful Postmaster General...

I'll tag Letters to Marc Jacobs, The Fray, Ma Petite Chou, Scarlet B Designs, and The Visa Diaries. And that's how the entire world will get infected with Chlamydia.

Are you there God? It's me, Winona.

No, I don't want to talk about training bras and periods and the existential anguish brought about by puberty and junior high and your Jewish/Christian family moving from New York to a small town in New Jersey (attention: if you weren't a teenage girl in America between 1970 and now, and this post is already confusing the hell out of you, please go here and catch up). Today, I'd like to talk about something a little more possibly/probably blasphemous: how great it would be if this jacket miraculously went on sale.


Well, see, it's already on sale, but it's definitely not on miraculous sale. Down to $337 from $482--that's what I call a lame sale. What I'm asking for is a holy sale. Let's say...fifty bucks? Its beauty and craftmanship are worth so much more than that, I know, but I thought I'd start low so we could have some wiggle room here. Give me a call or spell out "I don't do sales" in the clouds if you wanna talk. I'm here.

Milly "Tilly" jacket, azaleaonline.com

Filler.

I kind of have 150 pages to read in two hours, so look at this pretty skirt until I can give you a real post later tonight:

Isn't it so gorgeous that you actually could look at it, nonstop, until later tonight? I could. Mmmmm, skirt.....Oh, right. homework. college. graduation. future. damnit.

Adrianna Papell Flocked Ballgown Skirt, $109, nordstrom

Dressing for the Occassion with Martin Sheen, Raccoon Fashion Blogger Extraordinaire

The truth is, even raccoons have gotta break out the formal wear sometimes.

I'll never forget the time I was munching on day-old escargot in an alley behind a fancy restaurant wearing, well, nothing, and a waiter came out with a bag of garbage and chased me out of there, hissing and kicking cans and calling me a filthy animal. I couldn't believe I'd been so naive about the dress code! After that, I vowed that never again would I miss out on a serving of delicious snails just because I forgot to put clothes on.

I think a black sequin vest would do the trick. Don't you?

XOXO,
Martin

Kimchi & Blue sequin vest, on sale for $34.99, urbn.com

Joei and the Amazing Canadian Dreamcoat

Well, it was my dear friend Joei's birthday yesterday. I wasn't able to post this then because I have the kind of internet that is somehow slowed down by snow, as if there is an old man personally driving my emails and blog posts from my house to their destinations, and he doesn't have snowtires and doesn't see any need to rush, safety first after all. But everything seems to be better now and so, in honor of the birthday girl, behold:


Tres chic, right? A couple months ago, Joei told me that she had found her dream coat and that I must come over and see it, and when she opened her laptop, this picture was set as her background. I thought that was dedication, but when she told me the tragic tale of how this coat is only available in Canada and she has called every store in the country begging them to ship it and offering fruitbaskets and bribes and sexual favors (okay, not really, but close), I realized that this was true coat love.

Happy birthday, Joei! Someday, it shall be yours.

As for all you non-Joei's who love it, I'll tell you that it's by Soia & Kyo, but no more, or else you might go buy the last one and then what kind of a friend would I be?

Some Lovely Links for Couture Voyeurs

If you're a Couture Voyeur like myself and are in need of more Golden Globes coverage today, check out Fashion Verbatim, Go Fug Yourself, Style IT, and Blogdorf Goodman for fabulous pictures and commentary.

As for me, I'm way too lazy to do all the work needed for a comprehensive award show post, but I spent a much too large portion of my life last night and today looking at pictures, and I will say this:
I love Sienna Miller's dress. AND her hair. The whole ensemble is my favorite thing ever even though I haven't read a review yet that didn't include some combination of "Ugly" and "Heidi hair." Whatev. She looks hot.

Five Men's Fashion First Impressions

Yes, it's time again for a feature that proved quite popular in its recent debut. In case you're just tuning in, FMFFI is when I ask my five men (father, boyfriend, brothers) for their (always) honest opinion of a controversial fashion item, and confusion and hilarity ensues.

Today, the gender representatives were shown a picture of this Alexander McQueen ostrich feather hem dress, currently selling on Net-A-Porter for a cool $10,730:

And now, the men:

The boyfriend: Ooooorrggghhhhh (painful little moaning sound)....That's horrible! It looks like an ostrich! Oh, it is an ostrich. Why??

The father: (Recoils in disgust) Aw, jesus christ. (Points to the ostrich egg that is for some reason sitting on a shelf behind our computer, yes, seriously) You should say that you can lay one of those with this dress.

Brother, age 11: Ugly. What's the price?
Me: Ten thousand dollars.
Brother, age 11: Oh my god.

Brother, age 17: The skirt looks like that one giant muppet's head*.

Brother, age 19: (Curiously calm and withdrawn, shaking his head) It doesn't speak to me. It doesn't speak to me.

*Upon further prodding and google image searching, we realized the muppet in question was indeed "Sweetums," star of The Muppet Movie and shown here in a screenshot with costar Milton Berle:

Alexander McQueen can shave/slaughter as many ostriches as needed for his fashions, but for the love of god, spare Sweetums.

Daddy's back!

God that came out creepy. Anyway, dreadfully sorry about the egregious lack of posts this weekend and today. I was at the beach with the fam celebrating my mom's birthday and freezing my ass off (an experience which also steeled my long-simmering feeling that Uggs are still the greatest thing ever and I don't care if everyone stops reading my blog because I just wrote that).

I know that the lack of fresh Daddy Likey material caused much suffering in the world (Lindsay and Meg, we'll make it through your recovery together) and I plan to remedy it with many posts today, tomorrow, and for the rest of eternity.

Let's get started with an adorable little jacket I've been obsessing over for a few days now:

I don't know about you, but when I walk into a crowded classroom, I almost always base my seating decision on who has the cutest outfit. My communications class last Thursday proved especially rewarding when I sat down next to my chosen fashion (non)victim and immediately started purring and stroking the little retro jacket she was wearing and saying over and over again how much I loved it. Surprisingly enough, she didn't pack up her books and leave and press charges, but instead kindly told me she worked in the BP section of Nordstrom and this jacket of my dreams was available there.

I looked online as soon as I got home but alas, it wasn't on the Nordstrom website. However, the jacket above was, and after a brief deliberation I've decided that I like this one even better and someday it shall be mine.

I do have to say that I don't much care for how the model is wearing it. I would wear this lovely jacket over a black long sleeve t-shirt, with a denim mini skirt, thick black tights (grey cable-knit would be so cute too) and the black patent leather flats I found at Nordstrom rack last week for $20 that are so cute I can barely stop myself from licking them.

Well, I started this post with the creepy statement of "Daddy's back!" and ended it with a creepy statement about how much I want to lick my new shoes. In the writing world, we call that a circular narrative. Sort of.

Nick & Mo 'Doris' jacket, $54, nordstrom.com

High Fashion Haiku

Today our Daddy Likey Poet Laureate is the lovely Kate, who waxed haikuic about one of her favorite (everyone's, really) designers:

Dearest Phillip Lim,
How do you make such garments
That glide past gorgeous

And make the little
People lust for crisp white frocks
And navy flowers?

Amen, Kate, amen. If you knew how long I sat in front of my computer tonight (and most nights) refreshing the 3.1 Phillip Lim page at Net-A-Porter, hoping that one of my clicks would reveal a secret and magical sale page with dresses priced at $19.99, you'd, well, you'd probably say, "Whoa, that's really weird." But maybe you'd shyly whisper, "I thought I was the only one..." and in that case, let's be friends.

3.1 Phillip Lim blouse and dress, it's too depressing to type the price, netaporter.com

The Adorable Fur Hat vs. Higher Education

This hat is so cute and so on sale (regularly $104, down to $31 on sale, 20% off that...good god it's like three bucks by now) that it's making me question whether or not I really need that Communication Inquiry textbook that I'm "required" to have by "tomorrow" under penalty of "immediate failure of the class" (and yes, I'm taking breaks to perform each airquote for emphasis as I type this). Priorities can be difficult, can't they?

But remember kids: stay off hats, stay in school.

Elizabeth Gillett Crochet Fur Hat (also comes in brown and navy blue), girlshop.com

p.s. For 20% off anything and everything on the site, enter the code "mespree07" at checkout January 8-19th and thank me later.

In Pursuit of Hippyness

Take a nice, long look at this picture:

Surely you're thinking, "Ah, those sassy British What Not To Wear lasses have done it again! I'm so glad I don't wear faded, high-rise, tapered, too short, completely ill-fitting jeans with a tucked in t-shirt and bent up moccasins so those crazy gals don't swoop in with Oprah's cameras and tap me on the shoulder just as I'm buying some really embarrassing combination of things at the market, like maybe gefilte fish and extra-large condoms, and grab me by the shoulders and yell, "You've got a huge arse! Huuuge!" in my face and laugh and hug me like we're friends and then take a "before" picture of me like this one so I can be part of the "Worst Jeans Ever" special to air during sweeps week, because god that would suck."

But your run-on sentence of a thought would be quite wrong, my friend.

This is not a "before" picture; this is a real promotional photo from nordstrom.com, for a real pair of jeans they are selling for $130. Yep, you are looking at Three Digit Denim. No matter that you could achieve the same extremely unflattering effects for $20 or less at Sears (their Mom Jeans section is terrifying in both its immensity and future repercussions for beauty in the world).

In addition to the ugly jeans/high price cognitive dissonance situation, I'm just so confused by this picture. It's on the Nordstrom site, but it looks like such a half-assed attempt--they didn't even try to create a cute outfit around the heinous jeans ("Should we add some high heels?" "No, gimpy slippers and a Hanes tee should be fine."), the break of the pant leg is really odd, the whole crotch looks crooked, and the model is leaning to one side like she's considering making a break for it while asking the photographer, "So my head's not gonna be in the shot, right? This won't go in my permanent file, right? It'll just be unidentifiable legs and torso in the picture, right??"

I suppose if your fashion goal is to look hippy and frumpy and short (perhaps these ideals are going to come back in? I mean, svelte and trendy and tall have reigned supreme for quite some time now), then these are a great find. I can't give you the buying information in good conscience, however. You'll have to find a more enabling blog for that.

Once Upon A Time, Two Ugly Shoe Brands Got Cute.

Finally, pictures of the shoes (written about many times before) that I got for Christmas.

The Aerosoles:

Ah yes, my first non-Ugg boots (I'm only 21 so it's not quite as bad as it sounds). They have filled a massive void in my wardrobe and I wear them pretty much everyday.

The NeoNaturalizers:

These kind of don't look that cute here because the flash made the suede look blotchy and the visibly dirty kitchen floor doesn't really help the ambience, but I swear they are stunningly chic in real life.

And let me tell you, while both of these shoes have shunned their respective brands' traditions of Dowdy, Ugly, and Sensible, they have managed to retain the legendary comfort. Both (yes, even the four-inch heels) are ten-mile-hike-up-a-craggy-mountain comfy. Maybe I'll try that this weekend.

Let Us Begin With the Balenciaga Boot, and End with Willow.

Ladies and gentlemen, the infamous Balenciaga boot:


Yes, this is the terrifying shoe (although should it really be called a shoe? Perhaps "Morbid Foot Chamber of Torture and Pain" is a better suited moniker?) that Mary Kate Olsen loves. A lot. Like, this is how much she loves them:

photo from people.com

She wears them all the damn time. I'm not gonna judge too harshly here; I mean, there have been days where I've gotten up from a nice restful sleep and said to myself, "You know, I feel like purposefully and calculatedly afflicting myself with severe back pain today," and these shoes would be perfect for that.

But I digress. These boots are an extreme but potent example of the Great Shoe-Appreciation Gender Gap. You see, most women probably hate this shoe. They probably think it looks dumb and scary and they would never want to own a pair, but they also kind of get it. They have a context for this shoe. They've worn mega-high heels and platforms before; they've heard of the "pain is beauty" concept and employ it occassionally (or maybe often). So while they may not appreciate the shoe itself, they can appreciate the path of slowly escalating fashion moderation that ultimately led to such Balenciaga extremes. To the average comfort-embracing, shoe-confused, sneaker-wearing man, however, these boots are a mysterious phenomenon, a strange and terrifying beast unlike any Nikes encountered before.

With that in mind, today I'd like to introduce a new Daddy Likey feature: Five Men's Fashion First Impressions. Ever so often, I'll show a controversial high fashion item (hence the boots) to the extremly honest and blunt group of men that are my 3 brothers, father, and boyfriend, say "What do you think of this?" and publish the first things that come out of their mouths.

Without further ado, Five Men's First Impressions of the Balenciaga Boot:

The boyfriend: (audible and dramatic gasp) Oh my god! That's horrible! What is that??

The father: Cruel shoes! Cruel shoes! (this time said in an accent with a look of anticipation) Oh...You've never heard that Steve Martin skit? You should. It's funny. They're cruel shoes. They look cruel.

Brother, age 11: Too fancy. Too leathery. Too strappy. Too fabricy. Did you already put "too high"?

Brother, age 17: What? What the hell? Look, that heel looks like a Handy-Vac!

Brother, age 19: (lights up with recognition when I show him the picture) Oh! The midgets in Willow wear those! (Raises his hand into the air and lowers his voice a few octaves) Out of the way, peck!

Now, if you are confused as hell right now, allow me a bit of explaining that will probably confuse you more. Willow is a 1988 movie starring Val Kilmer that pretty much all men (and by "pretty much all men," I mean "all the men in my family") are obsessed with. The IMDB plot outline says it all: "A reluctant dwarf must play a critical role in protecting a special baby from an evil queen."

In one of the scenes, this reluctant dwarf is clutching the baby as a soldier on a horse gallops by and bellows, "Out of the way, peck!" Apparently, men know this scene like women know Harry's final appeal from When Harry Met Sally, because when I mentioned Willow to my seventeen-year-old brother later that day, he immediately sprang from his seat, raised his hand into the air, and in an identical tone bellowed, "Out of the way, peck!"

Of course, this begs the question: Is Mary Kate's boyfriend secretly amusing himself with Willow references everytime she wears the boots?

It's a definite possibility.

Sheep Get Cold Too

I feel like such a fashion sheep writing a breathlessly enthusiastic post about a Mike & Chris hoodie (seriously, pretty much every fashion website or blog out there has a story professing undying love for Mike & Chris right now), but this one is so cute that it made me, well, breathlessly enthusiastic:


I love the ruching, the shape, the detail, even the crisp white. You could pair this with just about anything--the faded grey jeans in the picture look fabulous, as would a flouncy skirt, a mod mini, or tailored black pants. My friend Khathy would surely wear it over an adorable little printed dress from Anthropologie and look way cuter than me and god I hate her. But that's beside the point. The point is, fashion sheep like me do get cold on occassion, and this hoodie is the perfect little solution.

Mike & Chris (duh) Grayson Fleece Hoodie, $172, girlshop.com

How preposterous! There's nowhere to store the family jewels!

So, this weekend I was going to start my new plan of taking the weekends off and coming back strong on Monday. But then I saw these:

I never thought I'd be scanning the sale items at Shopbop.com and find myself thinking, "These would really be a much better value if they came with a codpiece. Perhaps those are sold separately?"

And if you don't know what a codpiece is, you can come over and ask my dad like my group of friends and I did when we were 15 and studying Romeo & Juliet, and be horrified at the completeness of his answer.

"Oh my gosh! I love your shoes!"

Women buy and wear hot shoes for other women. We should all just accept this, and embrace this, and be happy.

Now, if you still saunter through the shoe section looking for that perfect high heel to impress your man, or the ultimate strappy sandal to score you a hottie at the club, trust me, some day you'll see the light. You'll be sitting at the coffeeshop in some impossibly expensive high heels, and the 4000th woman in a row will tap you on the shoulder and say, "Oh my gosh! I love your shoes!" and you'll sigh and give her a half-assed, "Thanks," while staring longingly at the hot guy a few tables over for whom the expensive high heels were intended, who is not complimenting your shoes (and will never compliment your shoes), when it hits you: Here you are, waiting and yearning for the male attention you dreamed your footwear would bring, brushing off all these perfectly lovely female compliments, but what if those female compliments are good enough? What if they're better than good? Why are 4000 woman compliments not as good as one man's?

Let me tell you, they're much better. Getting a shoe compliment from a woman is like having Bobby Flay come up to you at a party and tell you your seven-layer dip was incredible, like having Whitney Houston (pre-crack, of course) duck her head into your car window at a stoplight and tell you that she overheard you belting out "I Will Always Love You" and that you've really got something there, like having Mario Testino tap you on the shoulder when you're posing for Myspace self-portraits in front of your bathroom mirror and saying "You've got a good eye, kid." We women know our shoes, and our compliments should be appreciated and savored accordingly.

This is not to discount male shoe appreciation entirely. Some men are very knowledgeable about shoes (Manolo and Stuart, I'm looking at you), and this isn't to say the men who aren't don't try. Sure, my boyfriend will throw me a "nice shoes" bone every once in a while, but the truth is that I could put him in front of a shoe lineup that included a pair of ballet flats, some high heels, some nice boots, a pair of sandals, and those giant clunky thigh-high leather and metal leg braces that Forrest Gump had to wear as a child, and I could say "Which footwear seen here do I NOT wear regularly?" and he'd sweat and crack his knuckles and squint and finally break down and scream "Good god! Lay off! I have no idea!" Really, think about it, how many times in your life has a man complimented your shoes (I'll wait while you count on one hand)? How many times in your life has a man asked you "Why the hell do you need so many shoes?!" Yeah, that's what I thought.

Now that we have that clear, here are some impossibly expensive shoes that would earn you a heartfelt "Oh my gosh! I love your shoes!" from me:

Dolce & Gabbana

Miu Miu

Paul & Joe

Fendi (God I love these!)

Pedro Garcia

And some not-so-expensive ones:

Miss Sixty

Jeffrey Campbell

Two Lips

Seychelles

Nine West

(All from Saks, Net-A-Porter, or Nordstrom.com)

Today, tell a woman you love her shoes. Hopefully, she'll have read this blog (let's see...my daily readership divided by over 3 billion women in the world...yes, there's a good chance), and will truly understand what a wonderful compliment it is.