I am sure no one was waiting for this update with bated breath, but here it is: I did not get accepted to the Royal Bison spring art market. It was a long shot and (perhaps) a more political process than I realized, so while I was very disappointed initially, I’ve become pretty philosophical about it. Reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin helped, especially bits like this one:

“How shall we measure success?

It isn’t popularity, money, or critical esteem. Success occurs in the privacy of the soul. It comes in the moment you decide to release the work, before exposure to a single opinion. When you’ve done all you can to bring out the work’s greatest potential. When you’re pleased and ready to let go.”

So I am choosing not to see this as a setback but as a window of opportunity. I am once again free from any need to consider market dictates – what people might want to buy – when deciding what to create, and free from deadlines as well. I haven’t decided whether to apply to other markets this year. I kinda like all this freedom, to be honest, and at the end of the day … all the finished hoops that have been piling up don’t take up a lot of space. If I don’t sell any of them, it’s fine.

Speaking of which, let’s take a look:

Another abstract floral. It always makes me happy when I’m working with bold colour. Something like this doesn’t challenge me in a technical sense, so it’s the kind of thing I like to work on when I’m looking for space for quiet reflection. The work (which is still time-consuming even when it’s not challenging) is a sort of meditative ritual.

Landscapes have been the challenge I’ve set myself this year. They take a lot of time and are, therefore, a commitment and sign of confidence in my own ability to bring a design vision to life. With a lot of these, the picture doesn’t fully come together until the end so I have to trust my own skills while I’m doing the laborious leg work. Sometimes when I am part-way through a project like this, I am convinced that I’ve messed up and then I have to talk myself into continuing to the end … and usually, it does come together!

This was just a quick little hoop I made for myself because I’ve been wanting a Matisse print for a while. And I went on making a few other things for myself too:

A fancy peacock to join my frog prince.

Can you believe I didn’t have any cactus hoops of my own? All the previous ones I made were sold.

Queen Elizabeth I was one of my first cartoon portraits. It seemed fitting to add her mother, Anne Boleyn, to the line-up.

This was my second attempt at a Margot Tennenbaum cartoon, and I think it’s miles better than the first. It was meant for the Royal Bison market but now … maybe I’ll just keep it.

Ditto with this Frida portrait – perhaps my fave one yet.

Back to the Klimt floral theme, but a slightly new/different take. I loved this so much – designing it, making it, AND the end result – that I’m working on a second one now.

Last but not least, I wanted to experiment with thread painting in a non-landscape design and what better than one of my favourite flowers. Very happy with how this one turned out.

Spring is the start of the “busy season” each year, and this year I have a lot of extra “life stuff” on my plate, so I’ll be taking a slower pace with, well, every creative pursuit including this one. Which is ok. And it’s the upside of putting monetization on the back burner. For now 🙂

Details: J. Crew shirt, Everlane sweater, Mexx skirt, Pendleton coat (all secondhand)

Thoughts: GUYS!! THIS COAT!! I am in love. Maybe manifesting works after all. I found this amazing vintage Pendleton coat — in mint condition — for a killer price on Poshmark. Honestly, I think it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time (and swooping in quickly) which is the “secret” to all secondhand shopping. This coat is gorgeous and a total outfit-maker. I’ve been wearing it a LOT lately; it’s an instant “pick me up”. And the timing is right too; the temps are finally rising, so I can ditch my winter coat in favour of lighter ones like this one. Yay for spring and yay for amazing coats!

Details: Club Monaco turtleneck (retail), LizSport vest, Ralph Lauren jacket, Topshop pants (all thrifted)

Thoughts: This was one of my fave recent outfits; it all came together perfectly. I had the pants and vest set aside as “combo” but was missing the topper. I tried a few and nothing was really gelling. Then I remembered that I had this 90s classic monogram RL blazer which I thrifted a while ago but hadn’t worn yet because I couldn’t find the right outfit for it. Well, problem solved. I don’t wear navy a lot, but it’s the right neutral for this colour palette, and the preppiness of the blazer fits right in with the rest.

Details: Rebel Sugar turtleneck (gift), Jacob vest, no label skirt (both thrifted)

Thoughts: I’m calling this vibe “baroque goth”. It’s an aesthetic I didn’t end up exploring as much as I had hoped this winter. I think the main reason for that is the fact that I don’t have a lot of pieces that speak to the ‘baroque’ part. Nor have I been able to find things under that category that I’ve wanted to add to my closet. But that’s ok. No need to force things; if it’s meant to be, it will happen organically. Like this outfit.

Details: Club Monaco turtleneck (retail), Chaps vest, Malorie Urbanovich skirt, Paloma Picasso belt (all thrifted)

Thoughts: In case you couldn’t tell, this was an outfit inspired by a Ralph Lauren runway look. The runway version had an almost identical fair isle patterned topper; mine is a vest rather than a jacket, but that’s ok. The key styling note was the belt – RL does a lot of belts over sweaters with skirts (or dresses), which is new territory for me, and that can really transform the proportions of an outfit. This Paloma Picasso belt is a real statement too. It actually works better on skirts rather than pants because belt loops can get in the way of the chain (yes, I tried).

Details: Topshop dress, vintage cardigan (both thrifted), Zara shoes (retail)

Thoughts: My version of transitional dressing almost always involves tights. I hesitated over the colour of the tights in this case. I wasn’t sure whether to go with a ‘safe’ choice like black or a dark green that would blend into the background more; but I ended up choosing burgundy instead — which picks up the red in the floral pattern — and I think that bolder choice works well. I stuck with the funkier vibe by choosing chonky platforms rather than a more delicate shoe. This is still something I’m getting my eyes used to (the different shoe proportions) but I think it helps ‘modernize’ the outfit as a whole.

I’ve been blogging about personal style for almost 13 years which is an awfully long time, even without accounting for the fact that the pandemic years alone felt like a decade. It’s not surprising then that my thoughts on the subject have evolved a lot. I used to be much more uncritical – one might say even gullible – in my intake of fashion ideology. Consequently, I fell for a bunch of ideas which, in retrospect, are easy to spot as mere capitalist gimmicks. And though I might have become savvier in the last decade, those gimmicks keep on gimmicking. They are the fashion myths that just won’t die. Fashion zombies, if you will.

French Girl Chic

The superiority of French girls (and women) has been undisputed since at least the 80s. They know what (not) to eat, what to wear, and how to make bedhead look chic. Any attempts to distil their knowledge – and, gosh, countless people (French and otherwise) have tried – are pointless because at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact they are French and you’re not je ne sais quoi. It is elusive but maybe, just maybe, if you finally find that perfect shade of red lipstick, you too can achieve French Girl nirvana.

That’s the idea, anyway.

The reality is that French women are not a monolith and chic-ness of style has no nationality or look.

Capsule Wardrobes

Ahhh, remember the 30 x 30 challenge circa the early 2010s? That thing had a hold on my psyche, like whoa. But that was an almost quaint precursor of the capsule wardrobe, something that continues to be touted in many spaces as the solution to all your style dilemmas. It’s important to distinguish here between 2 things: a wardrobe-building technique and a product.

As a wardrobe-building technique, capsuling has merit. It’s also what most of us do, whether we realize it or not. You know how you have things in your closet that you wear a lot? And then when you buy new things, you pick stuff that goes with those things that you wear a lot? Congrats, you have a capsule!

People who explain their wardrobe-building … I’m sorry … their “capsule-building” approach (i.e. how to edit what’s in your closet and shop mindfully) are doing a legitimate service. They’re teaching people to fish, rather than selling them (overpriced) fish – if you’ll pardon the analogy. Obviously, the fashion industry is not interested in this because there is relatively little money to be made out of informed consumers.

A capsule wardrobe as product is total a gimmick, and this is what you’re generally going to find on social media. Notice that the capsule wardrobe-as-product is never positioned by reference to what’s already in your closet (which reflects what you like to wear, the climate you live in, your job and hobbies, etc.). It presupposes a blank slate. It’s a prescriptive list of items you should buy … and the list will be different a year, or even a season from now.

10 Items Every Woman Should Own

This is just plain bullsh*t. Unless we are talking about BROAD generalities – like, every woman should own a pair of comfortable shoes – this list exists solely in order to sell you something. Probably a white button-down shirt or a trench coat.

10 Items Women Over 40 Shouldn’t Wear

This is the same kind of bullsh*t but with an ageist twist. It might seem counter-capitalist to have a “don’t wear this” list, but it’s not. These lists are meant to instill a sense of inadequacy, which can then be exploited to sell other things.

This is actually at the core of all of these myths: feelings of inferiority or inadequacy –>perceived lack or need –> monetized solutions. Lather, rinse, repeat. It also makes them easy for me to spot now that I know what to look for. If an influencer post or media article elicits a negative emotional response – makes me feel suddenly dissatisfied or restless or just “bad” in some unspecified way – it’s a sign that I need to probe that response further before acting on it. The question I ask myself in that case: cui bono? Cui bono is just a fancy lawyer term for “who profits”. It’s pretty self-explanatory. If there is a product put forward (or implied), someone definitely intends to profit from my feeling bad.

In an ideal world, it would be great to be impervious to negative feelings like self-doubt, inadequacy, jealousy, and so on. The reality is, they can be hard to avoid especially in a non-ideal world that often works very hard to provoke exactly those feelings (because that’s how capitalism thrives). What I strive for is to be aware of those feelings, question them and not allow them to be monetized at my expense. And I think that’s pretty good progress.