Would you like dress so short people can see up your butthole, or dress so long you look like a Victorian who's afraid to show ankle? No, there is no middle ground.

Would this be silly to wear out in this day and age? I think these look amazing. A couple of others I like:

I’m not tom fucking Clancy, but I’ve got a fish and an anchor already

What is the best? What do people here buy? Do you stay away from all synthetics?

Cotton is a great all around material, but has such heavy water usage, and a lot isn't made well. Linen/hemp seems better for that, and is durable, but it's such a specific look and with too much casual linen/hemp you look like a 00s stoner. Synthetics are literally plastic and every wash puts more micro plastics into the water. Is wool good? It works well for a lot of stuff, but is expensive and is an animal product. Vintage wool stuff can be pretty great. Lots of good deals on vintage wool coats which have held up great including brands you've never heard of and are long defunct.

What else is there?

Edit: also open to just durability recommendations. What lasts you the longest?

When Donald Trump first donned the MAGA cap in 2015, it was a simple “Golfer” hat, thus named because it’s just the kind of hat you would wear golfing in the 1980s. (FWIW, the first time he wore one, it was actually a white and blue colorway, not the red and white that would become its signature.) Trump is an ’80s guy through and through, and he’s a golfer—the kind of golfer who tells a raunchy joke on the first tee.

But, by the time you’re at the hot dog cart, he’s said three or four things about women that are so casually chilling, you’ll never forget you heard them—so the hat was a period-specific encapsulation of the man’s vibe. [...] So Trump in 2015, either accidentally or on purpose, chose a particularly outmoded hat to turn into his personal crown. All the same, it caught fire, and his supporters began wearing these terrible-looking caps everywhere.

But somewhere in there, something started happening. Very specifically, the New Era 9FORTY A-Frame hat began to rise. [...] What the A-frame does is take the basic shape and style of the MAGA golfer and give it a makeover. Instead of the schlumpy front panel, it’s got a structured buckram backing, but the signature pinch is still there, just sharp and beaklike now. It has snaps in the back, and a notably high crown. What’s more, the Trump campaign adopted this sleeker styling itself.

After the initial run, they abandoned the lowly golfer. The 2020 campaign hats were essentially New Era 9FORTY knock-offs, and the 2024 campaign hats are like a hallucination of them—they are hats at the same size and scale of a derisive political cartoon. The crowns are comically high, the pinches peaking into the sky. You’ll see this especially in images of Elon Musk in the Oval Office, wearing the kind of goth, ten-gallon ball cap Count Orlok might wear to a Yankee game.

[...]

This is all speculative, of course, but something happened recently that made me think that the cross-penetration between the MAGA movement and hat design in the U.S. is real. Since the start of the 2024 presidential campaign, New Era has debuted a few new A-frame designs. One, released last year, is the 59FIFTY A-frame, a revision of their classic fitted hat silhouette but with a pinched A-frame front panel.

There really isn’t any clearer a metaphor for the way that this movement has seeped into the cultural groundwater than a hundred-year-old company that is known only for making a product that symbolizes the Great American Pastime and that is beloved by wide swaths of the American public, changing its design after 70 years to make it just a little bit more Trumpy.

[...]

the divider that we might imagine to have been built between pop-culture spaces and the MAGA movement has either crumbled or was never really there in the first place. It’s not just evangelical film studios and Taylor Sheridan TV shows. It’s been infrastructure week for the past decade, as elements of this massive movement have been building up strength in the places where we least expect them.

When a thing like this becomes visible, check to see how long it had been there before you noticed. Moreover, ask what that might mean about the idea that this ideology can be laughed out of the room, stigmatized until it slinks away in shame. A few weeks ago, I saw a picture of the president in the Situation Room, monitoring a War in Iran, wearing an A-frame MAGA hat so tall he could have been hiding a neo-conservative Ratatouille under there.

In a way, he was. I’ve seen Kristi Noem waltzing around the “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp in a tall white and gold A-frame varietal. As that man and his lieutenants violently wreak their vulgarity upon Los Angeles and Florida and Tehran, the world moves into a new era shaped by his vanity, his venality, his incuriosity, his horrible style. If the hat fits, wear it.

Cube Converse "Cubverse" Footwear, created by Armand Croisonnier, Matteo Cavarra, and Edgar Beyls.

So, the gist is, I've only ever worn whichever-FruitOfTheLooms were cheapest at whatever Walmart or Target I happened to be at. There was that one time I was at a fetish shop and I bought fancy underwear (for like forty dollars...) but I'm hoping to find something somewhere in between.

What's an underwear option that supports looking like they were bought, neither, by one's mom 20 years ago nor by a 40 year old virgin at a sex shop?

Posted this in a different thread and couldn't remember if I posted it here or not, and well, bags are cool!

My current go-to bag has carry handles and backpack straps because I like having a hands-free option lol.

Found some more pics on this site: https://hackerscurator.com/pages/costumes/burn.html

Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump: The messages behind the fashion

29 July 2016

Sweater

Etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary gives "sweater" as appearing in 1882 and gives its definition as "A woolen vest or jersey worn in rowing or other athletic exercises, originally... to reduce one's weight; now commonly put on also before or after exercise to prevent taking cold. Hence a similar garment for general informal wear; a jumper or pullover".

[...]

According to British dictionaries, "sweater" is used in British English in the same sense as in American English but "jumper" is commonly used instead (though some say that "sweater" is used for heavier ones worn for warmth). The Oxford English Dictionary states that in British usage, sweaters are always pulled over the head and jumpers are not necessarily, whereas most or all other British dictionaries disagree and say that sweaters are not necessarily pullovers or even say that jumpers are always pullovers, i.e. never open in front.

According to most British dictionaries, British usage agrees with what American dictionaries describe as American English usage, according to which a sweater is either a pullover or a cardigan (which opens at the front). Almost all British dictionaries include cardigans as a type of sweater but at least one includes cardigans as a type of jumper (i.e. most British dictionaries consider "sweater" – and at least one considers "jumper" – to be a hypernym for both pullovers and cardigans).

Colloquial and informal usage common in Britain is using the term “cardie” for a cardigan which usually refers to a button-front sweater.

I'm being told in my earpiece that fuzzycrumpet is not actually a word.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4385058

https://archive.ph/7uIzF

Welcome back to Sery's dressposting~ We are taking a look at Hoshibako Works' collaboration with Zun to produce Touhou Project lolita dresses, specifically the Alice and Marisa ones since they're my favourite characters. As I do so, I'll go over how lolita coording should try to capture the essence of a character without simply cosplaying them. This is also a special issue where I am coping with the fact that I cannot afford these dresses despite really really wanting them. I'm sorry for the mess you are about to read.

Before we begin, some context for what the hell a Touhou is and why I care. Touhou Project is a Japanese bullet hell video game series developed by Zun that has a pretty huge cast of basically entirely female characters and some pretty incredible music. While I can't go over this series in much detail here, I'll be giving little explanations of these two characters before I delve into their dresses so as to contextualise them and I will be drawing from official art to compare to.

I really like these games. I suck at them, but I find them very fun. Plus I have a pretty strong attachment to the cast and a not-insignificant amount of the music I listen to on a daily basis is doujin-band covers of their OSTs.

So, beginning with Alice Margatroid. She is the Seven-Coloured Puppeteer, a magician who controls dolls as her primary gimmick power to fight other people and do daily chores with. You can even see a replica doll in the background of the photos of her dress! (Though unfortunately I don't think it's available for purchase or else I would get one as a cope) As a character she's generally a bit of a loner and a bit blunt towards people, but generally still caring. Essentially a cold exterior, but she warms up and opens up to some people, becoming more vulnerable and showing that she's got a little bit of a cowardly streak.

Design-wise she has been pretty set-in-stone when it comes to the official look: She has a simple blue dress over a white short sleeved blouse, with a white capelet on top. Then as accessories she wears pink: a ribbon around her waist, a scarf tied into a bow, and either a lace hairband or bow in her hair. And all of these details barring the shirt have some amount of spiky lace. Occasionally in some other official media like manga she swaps the short sleeves out for long ones and a few other minor alterations, but generally this is how Alice looks.

It's a design which, frankly, is basically almost a lolita coord as it is. All that it is missing is a petticoat to get the right shape language. (notice how it doesn't poof out that much on the skirt, instead it mostly follows her shape. Although some artwork of her does give it sufficient poof.) Yet Hoshibako Works didn't simply replicate the actual design for this collaboration, instead they made some pretty key changes.

The biggest and most notable being the capelet. Rather than have it be just plain white cloth with a lace trim like the character art, they made the entire thing lace and gave it a very lovely rose motif. Why would they do this? It's because a good lolita coord isn't meant to be 1 to 1 accurate to the source material. The goal is to capture the feeling of a character without actually copying them. And ultimately as a design, Alice's capelet is the most striking part which your eyes will be drawn to. But when translated to the real world, if it were accurate to the game it would become a lot less striking compared to the rest of the outfit. This is for a few reasons. The first is that the pure white of the capelet, regardless the black outline, would blend into the white and, in this design, long sleeves. This would leave that looking like a block, and while that can certainly work for a look, it would also draw attention away from the capelet itself which would be a mistake when trying to represent Alice. The second is to do with detail. Many of the smaller areas of lace such as around the waist would draw a lot of attention due to being the most visually interesting spots. By making the capelet fully lace, we solve both issues by making it both not solid white and also the area of the highest detail by far on the whole dress. It becomes the focal point, and captures the most important parts of Alice's design super well.

Similarly, an Alice by accuracy would have to contend with the way her design switches between scarfs and bows depending on the exact artwork. Here they decided to go with the bow, and it makes sense. It allows them to make a much more elaborate look (just look at how many loops it has) and, more importantly, it's a much more distinctly lolita appearance, allowing the overall outfit to stay in that realm of lolita design.

Of course, this is also an outfit, so the capelet is removable. And by god it is such a beautiful and simple dress underneath. I love the way that it's laced up so much. I'm not too keen on the fact that it seems to be an OP when Alice's dress is clearly a JSK and blouse combo, but I also don't mind because this is such a pretty one that it works anyways.

The last thing of note is then the bow tied at the waist and it's just, so, so pretty. I don't have anything to say, I just love it.

Moving on now to Marisa. She is an ordinary magician whose main gimmick is using love-coloured star magic. Big gremlin energy, I love her so much. Her entire thing is being a little menace who goes around solving issues, stealing books and just hanging out. She's also my main character in these games and has been on the banner of my account ever since I made it.

(As a small tangent, she and Alice are tied for my favourite character, I can't really pick one. Marisa is the one I get more joy from and I try to replicate her aesthetically (side braids go brrrr) but Alice is more me-coded in terms of both aesthetic and personality, or at least I feel she is.)

In terms of design, Marisa actually differs a lot from game to game. Unlike Alice, she is one of the main playable characters and so she will get new art every game. Her basic outfit is very set, it's a black witch outfit made with a black skirt and vest, with a white blouse and white apron.

The accessories are where it mainly differs, as she will usually have a bow on her hat and braid, but the exact colour of the bow changes in every single game and she will occasionally add extra accessories like scarfs, capelets, or pendants depending on the game. Plus her actual outfit will occasionally change slightly with things like embroidery being added.

Much like Alice, the dress based on her differs quite a bit from any of these depictions. Among the official ones I looked at the closest I could find is this one above, which comes from the artbook Who's Who of Humans & Youkai - Dusk Edition. This is mainly because it's the only design that includes this particular victorian style of collar which the dress itself replicated. Of course on the other hand the vest here is absolutely not the same as the dress's, but still.

(Tangent, while I was looking for official Marisa designs I discovered this one which Zun illustrated for the old official site and honestly I love this, I kinda want to make a coord based on this specifically. The capelet especially looks so pretty and I want something similar. Although the skirt is kind of a mess on this illustration, oh well, I get the idea and it's cool to me.)

So, now to look at the dress itself! Like Alice, it matches the basic design but differs a lot on details. A particular choice which I find very important for this dress is that they decided on plaid black and white for the accent colour used by the bows. This is really interesting since it's not one which has been used by an official Marisa design before and I think it's actually really pretty. It makes it striking and unique for her character while still entirely fitting in the realm of things she'd wear, and it helps to avoid the problem of picking a specific game's design only to have weirdos (me) critique it for not being their favourite. (Phantasmagoria of Flower View's purple btw, it's the one I included a photo of earlier.)

Construction-wise I'm... kind of confused more than anything else. I think it's an OP? But if so that's a huge shame because I'd have much preferred it being separate pieces for the blouse and skirt. At least the apron is removeable, since it's just tied at the back. But idk, I could have absolutely seen myself (in the world where I could afford it) using the skirt or blouse separately for coords but as is they're stuck being just for this one look which will always feel very Marisa-ish to me. It's just a small shame.

Similarly, with the apron, I'm not really convinced by the pockets. It's something which certainly fits her character, she'd love to have easy places to hide small trinkets she steals or ingredients she's collecting, but I'm not sure it's really doing it for me aesthetically. I have warmed up to it a lot since I first saw the dress though, so maybe I'll come around to it eventually.

Going back to the full outfit, the details are incredible. The collar has some lovely little embroidered stars on it,

and those motifs are continued down with the buttons.

This use of the stars as a detail continues down even into the lace and it's so adorable.

It's a really lovely way to, once again, bring in the feel of Marisa without being 1 to 1 accurate. She's a star-based magician, so giving her star themed detailing is the best move and brings in a lot more of her character than you'd be able to if you just replicated her in-game outfits.