Creativity and Capitalism?

outfit deets: boots - c/o Big Buddha // tights - We Love Colours // skirt - F21 // tee - H&M // flannel - thrifted // jacket - my Nans (altered by me)

I've been thinking about individualism a lot lately and it's connection to fashion and what it all means to me. There are extremely predominant theorists out there who will tell you that fashion just perpetuates the hegemony of capitalism. In other words, fashion allows us to operate under the pretence that we are individuals with agency when in fact we are doing exactly what the 'capitalists' want us to do. To a certain degree, it is true that fast fashion chains (H&M, F21 etc.) in part probably work to perpetuate some sort of capitalist ideology in the way that they provide mass produced goods and the clothes are often made without a particular person in mind but just made for a mass of people so as to gain the most profit. This only speaks to the actual production and consumption of the items and while I would probably rather not consume things from fast fashion chains and would rather give all of my money to local sellers and artists the nature of the beast (the dirty rotten beast) is such that it is much more expensive to go that route and I am a poor student. With all of that said, I DO NOT think that buying items from fast fashion chains necessarily takes away from our ability to express our individuality as freely as possible within the society we live in.

A perfect example of how and why I believe this to be true lies within the swap groups like Wardrobe Wanderlust and the Delightful Dozen. These groups take one item of clothing (often from places like F21 and H&M) and pass it around between girls allowing one another to style them up in different ways. The fun in following these groups come from seeing the items styled up in a bunch of totally different ways. In that way, yah the big chains decide what to put in the stores but they have no say in how we're going to wear it and that is the fun part! The fun part is getting the item and exploring all the possibilities of how it can be worn. So yah, it sucks that we're stuck in a world we basically have to make the best of a shitty situation. Where we have to give our money to some evil and hope that it doesn't kick us in the ass later. Of course, as a poor student you do have other options (buying vintage, used, thrift) but it is a hard task to have and maintain an entirely vintage or thrifted wardrobe!

Anyway, enough of that! Kudos if you read the whole thing haha. Leave a comment if you have any additional thoughts about this whole thing - my thoughts on it are still very unsettled.

My outfit today was put together in the wee hours of the morning right before I had to run out the door to get to my mid-term exam. It's a bit of a jumble but I like it that way!

Happy Monday lovelies,

xo Robyn

Week's End Mish Mash

Oh my stars - what a bad blogger I have been this week! In lieu of a regular outfit post I thought I would just do a bit of a random post featuring things that have been on my mind lately. It's been my reading week so I really have no excuse for the lack of outfit photos, apart from the fact that big-time renos are happening at the house and I've been helping out as much as I can. Accordingly, I've been pretty much just wearing outfits that look a lot like the one below but covered in paint.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago in my gym clothes in hopes of doing a gym related post but then I realized I don't actually have anything too meaningful to say about the gym and this outfit is pretty boring, haha! Anyway, I usually wear some variation of this outfit to the gym except swap in leggings on warmer days.

Speaking of warmer days - there is a frakking blizzard happening outside and all I can think about are sandy beaches. This photo is from our trip to Cuba last May and boy do I wish I were there right now. SO into the idea of a deck chair and a mojito.

This is what my hair looked like about 2 years ago. I have been thinking about going back to a similar cut recently because my hair is driving me nuts. I straighten it too much and so now the ends are not looking very good at all and it will not grow any longer. I wanna get this cut so I can leave most of my hair be and just straighten my fringe. Thoughts?

I leave you all with the pixel versions of Dale and I that I made a little while ago. Look! I am even waving 'bye' how totally appropriate. I kind of enjoyed doing this post and I always have random tid-bits I feel like sharing that do not fit in a regular post so I might actually do this every now and again. Alright lovelies, I hope to be back with an outfit post soon despite all of my upcoming mid-terms, haha!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

xo Robyn

p.s. I still need lots of questions to ponder and hopefully answer for a feature I am doing over at Amber's blog so if you're having an existential crisis, a bad hair day, if you're experiencing loss, or love, having wordly anxieties, have a loose button, mulling over conspiracy theories, or have a question or thought about anything in between - gimme a holler on my formspring and we can talk about it!

Blown Like the Wind

outfit deets: shoes - c/o Big Buddha // tights - We Love Colours // dress - F21 // cardigan - H&M

I'm pretty excited about these photos. Dale and I took them after running some errands during the day and by the time we got around to taking outfit photos it was soo windy! We were worried the wind would make for funny photos with my hair and dress blowin' all over the place but it actually kind of worked to my advantage - I get the windblown hair look with minimal effort! Wahoo. Really though, the awesome-osity of these photos is thanks to my awesomelicious photographer and his willingness to brave the cold wind to get these shots for me. ♥

OK so - I know I tend to wear a lot of F21 dresses and I love most of them but this one that I am wearing takes the cake! I love the floaty chiffon it is made out of and the rounded peter pan collar. What is more is that the built in slip is of so much better quality than any dress I have ever bought from Forever21. I can tell it's going to be a go-to dress for me this spring!

It's Saturday afternoon and I am officially on reading week! Yatta! I'm excited for a week of getting re-organized, playing WoW, and general hanging out.

Happy Weekend!!

xo Robyn

Black Hole

outfit deets: boots - Jasmins c/o of Big Buddha // tights - We Love Colours // skirt - H&M //jacket - Bicyclette // blouse - vintage // collar - vintage // bag - vintage

It's haaaard taking photos of yourself in the middle of the street at midday! There are all these cars wanting to drive down the street - what's up with that!? Cars? On the street? Who do they think they are?? Anyway, I managed to snap these in between running back and forth to snatch up the camera out of the street before the car came through. Everytime I would see a car coming I said to myself (in my head haha) "caaaaar" and then when it left I would say "game on!" I felt like I was playing street hockey again out there.

This is what I wore to my astronomy mid-term. Honestly, as a philosophy student I have to stop thinking that it's a good idea to take science classes. First physics and now astronomy? I'm a little bit of a crazy person I think. I just like science and I especially like astronomy - but I suck at the math, it's an unfortunate state of affairs. I love the theoretical aspect to science, where we can talk about stuff we don't really know too much about yet - but I guess that is why it's good I'm in philosophy - I would make a terrible...terrible scientist.

It was semi-warm today - I got to break out the spring jacket! I'm hoping this warming trend sticks with us. Winter is getting on my nerves.

It's almost the weekend and almost reading week for me! *dances* Happy almost weekend lovelies!

xo Robyn

Heart-On

outfit deets: shoes - c/o Big Buddha // tights - We Love Colours //skirt, cardi - H&M // top - thrifted and altered // Fascinator - Find it Fascinating //rings - vintage

While I am growing tired of taking photos indoors I am actually quite happy with the way these turned out. I wore this outfit yesterday for Valentines day. Dale and I tried to take outfit photos before dinner but the lighting just wasn't working so we gave up and I re-did them today. This is my new favourite skirt obviously and I LOVE the colour of these tights and I extra loved them for v-day. I am not super into Valentine's day or anything, I think it's mostly pretty silly and mainly a huge scam, but I am still a girl so I like hearts n pink stuff and most of all... chocolate! Any holiday that justifies my chocolate addiction is alright by me. We had a good day though, I ate lots of chocolate, drank delicious rootbeer, had yummy thai food for dinner, and then took a walk through a mall full of ridiculously high-end stores.

OK so I have a Valentine's day related story that might shed a little bit of light on my title for todays post. One day close to Valentine's day when I was about five my Dad's friend Danny and I were in the car waiting for me Dad to lock up the house or something and I noticed that Danny had a cast on his arm with lots of stuff written all over it. While I was checking out all the cool stuff people had drawn I noticed a big red heart. Just as my Dad was getting in the car he heard me remark, "oh my Danny I see you have a heart-on." My Dad was gearing up to punch his friend when he noticed the heart drawn on to his cast. Ahem, yah - if the vulgarity of this story aludes you, just say "heart-on" aloud.

I hope you all had a good V-Day!

xo Robyn

My first vlog: Whats in my bag!

Hey lovelies! Soo I recorded a video blog yesterday and despite my embarassment I thought I would upload it. It's a little 'what's in my bag?' video and when I say 'little' I mean to say that it is actually kind of long! So bear with me...I hope I'm not too boring. I always love watching what's in my bag/purse videos though so I thought I would do one of my own. So without further ado - my first video blog:

I'm not sure why it uploaded as less than the full width of the screen but I'll work on getting that fixed. Also, I don't know why there is a little bit of a buzzing in the background - going to have to figure that out too. They can only get better from here!

Happy Saturday, I hope all is well!

xo Robyn

Grass on the Other Side

...what they say about the grass on the other side is true - too much time looking up, turning everything blue

outfit deets: shoes - thrifted // skirt - H&M // crop sweater - F21

Taking pictures of myself all the time isn't easy! Sometimes I get shots of myself from a bad angle or with a screwy face and wonder if that is actually what I look like. After comes the wishing I were skinnier and had longer legs process I go through on bad days. Truth is though, if I were super skinny I would probably miss my curves. The grass is always greener on the other side and I'm always going to have stuff I am unhappy with so I just have to rock what I have right now. I will never be rake thin no matter how much I work out because my body is just not built that way and I am so okay with that.

Anyway - as you can tell, my house is still in the throws of renovation! This mirror usually hangs above the fire place and it has always been one of my favourite things in the house. I hope there is an appropriate place to hang it in the new house.

How did your Tuesdays go lovelies? I hope super awesomely fantastic like every Tuesday should be! ♥

xo Robyn

Here for a Good Time

...not for a long time, so have a good time, the sun can't shine everyday.

Forgive the photo-heavy nature of this post! I had such a blast this weekend that I thought it had to be documented:

A couple minutes after arriving on Friday night. Cracking out the beer and taking some group photos were clearly high on our list of priorities.

Adie and my Dad in their cottage clothes

After my Dad and Gordie-boy (and Persia, for that matter) went to bed we cranked the stereo and started dancing...until about 4 in the morning.

Got up too early in the morning and got a delicious breakfast at the greasy spoon nearby.

Yah, this is me just posing on the snowmobile and not actually snowmobiling. We had left the thing idling for so long that my Dad came up to find us because he thought we were stuck. Nope, just taking pictures. It had been at least a couple years since I had snowmobiled so my muscles weren't used to it at all and now I am so sore. We also got stuck a lot in the woods and had to lift the thing up and maneuver the skiis just to get out of the snow and back on the trail. It was a workout and a half.

It's a good thing snowmobiling was such a workout because we ate a lot, drank a lot and lazed around a lot this weekend.

Persia and Julia decided to take a five'r in the snow.

It was really such a fun weekend. We got lucky because it wasn't that cold so we didn't freeze our butts off sleeping at night. Also, my Dad and his friend Gord were there to keep us from dying by stoking the wood-burning stove, helping us start the snowmobiles and generally aiding a bunch of city-girls get by in the middle of nowhere. For instance, the road into the cottage isn't plowed in the winter so you can't drive the car all the way down. You have to park it up at the top at the road and either snowmobile or take the jeep down and ferry all of your supplies with you. It's quite the job and it would have taken us ages to do it on our own seeing as I can't drive standard, and am not strong enough (yet) to pull the cord to get the engine going on the snowmobile.

It had been a long time since all of us girls had even just hung out together all at once let alone all together up at the cottage. It's been about 18 years since I first met these girls and so they are like family. I know I will always have them around no matter how much we can drive eachother nuts, no matter how different our opinions may be on some things, no matter how long we go without seeing one another and no matter how many times Julia steals my sweater.

xo Robyn

Extra Lazer

outfit deets: socks - AA // tights, sweater - H&M // dress (worn as skirt) - Forever 21

Today was another one of those bitter cold days when we just couldn't be arsed to take photos outside. So instead of braving the cold sans jacket - I didn't even get out of bed for these! Sweet deal.

Dale took me shopping on Tuesday! lessthanthree. I got this sweater, and a skirt from H&M as well as a bag full of goodies from Bath and Body Works. I had been eyeing this sweater for awhile and when I saw the way Meg of Bow Ties are Cool style it up I wanted it even more! Not to mention, it matches this dress so well. It's like they were made for eachother.

Anyway, I just wore this for class, brunch and then general lazerbutt activity at Dale's (a.k.a. DeathNote, Paprika, Community watching). Tomorrow night I am headed to the cottage with my dad and the girls for some snow mobiling and other snow related activities including but not limited to freezing our asses off. We are unofficially celebrating ~18 years of being friends. Expect some pictures from our weekend adventure, but don't expect them to be very fashionable, I plan on wearing at least 8 layers of clothing and a snow mobile helmet...at all times.

HAPPY WEEKEND.

xo Robyn