Fancy Find

The Blog Is Back!

2010-02-14T03:21:00Z

Hey all! My blog is back on the air, at a new domain. Lots of new and exciting changes to behold!

Check out http://amyuhrich.com and update your links! This post explains everything.

Fancy Find will be going offline soon, but all its greatness and archived entries will remain on the new blog! (P.S. The updated RSS feed can be found here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AmyUhrich.)

Thanks so much for your continued support! I hope to see you there.

Hiatus/Update

2010-02-03T02:50:35Z

Hey all–you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) Life and other obligations got the better of me, and…

2) I’m ruminating on a new blog project.

I mentioned before that I would be playing around with the blog format to see what worked best for me. I’m guessing something wasn’t working, because I got a bit overwhelmed, even though I was only posting once or twice a week. My thesis work and last year of grad school have been a bit much, but I’ve also been thinking about what I want to do with my web presence.

I’ve gotten increasingly back into tarot, and am planning to launch a tarot blog and read professionally on a more regular basis. However, there are still things I love about fashion blogging. I seem to have trouble committing to just one type of blog or website (I suppose creative monogamy doesn’t work for me?). Therefore I’ve come to the conclusion that it might be best to consolidate my online identity into a single website, where I can bring together all the things I love and still keep them somewhat separate–without it costing me a fortune in terms of time, cash, and maintenance.

Thus far things are still a bit up in the air, but expect to see me posting about fashion again in the future, whilst also fulfilling my other blog hobbies (tarot, creative writing, etc). I apologize for taking a hiatus and not telling anyone–I really didn’t have a plan at the time. I hope you’ll all continue to stick around, and I promise to let you know when I’ve got something up and running again. Until then, best wishes.

Wardrobe Wednesday – Striped Knits

2009-11-19T08:54:57Z

I wore this outfit on Sunday, bumming around the apartment and out to the movies (my first outdoor venture since recovering from the sinus cold). It felt so good to wear layered knits.

I’ve had this scarf since high school, and aside from color it has absolutely no pattern–every stripe is different. I love it.

Stripped down.

The whole bag of tricks…

Grey chunky knit long cardigan – AngieHearts
Striped racer-back tank & black cardigan – Forever 21
Black stretch tube top (worn as skirt) – Express (thrifted)
Black elbow-length leather gloves – ASOS
Striped wool scarf – Sears
Rust-colored opaque tights – Alloy
Silver leaf earrings – gift
Silver pentacle ring – Crone’s Cupboard
Jeffrey Campbell ‘Photo’ buckle wedge boots

Help, I’m Alive (Surviving a Cold)

2009-11-16T07:25:12Z

Things that have been keeping me sane through a very nasty cold:

GLIMPSE (above). An awesome AVANT Magazine fashion editorial/video (which, unfortunately, I can’t embed) set to Sigur Rós’s “Glósóli.” Go, click, watch it. I am totally in love.

Coloring books. Disney Princesses + colored pencils = love. I feel like a kid again.

Metric. I am going to see them perform with Band of Skulls at Mr. Smalls Theatre two days before Thanksgiving. YES! I can’t even describe how excited I am.

Contac, cough drops, and raw garlic—this stuff saved me. For more tips, check out Gala’s Magical Guide to Getting Well.

Pontypool. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, go find it. It’s scary AND it makes you think.

Buying plane tickets. All my old friends will be here in early to mid-December—score!

Three days of chili—the best of the best—from my roommate, and corn muffins.

Matthieu reading to me, playing Rummy with me, sitting through first-season ER (mmm…George Clooney), and carrying me to bed. Every night.

All these things got me through the week, and I am thankful for them. There were probably more, and if I forgot what they were, I am sorry…my sense of time has been a little off.

P.S. It has come to my attention that post comments were recently unavailable (I’m not sure for how long). It’s fixed temporarily for now, so comment away—and I’ll keep an eye on it in the future.

For those who are ill, get well. The rest of you—stay the course.

Wardrobe Wednesday – Velvet Vixen

2009-11-19T19:19:57Z

So I know I just recently made a velvet post, but the new dress came and I couldn’t resist. Worn Saturday whilst being lazy, wine shopping, chilling with friends, and cuddling one of my chinchillas (Luna). Good times. (Both dress and rodent are wonderfully cozy.)

I’ve had this cap for years and it matches perfectly. How nice.

Mango washed black velvet dress – ASOS
Washed velvet newsboy cap – Payless
Black opaque tights – Alloy
Silver leaf earrings – gift
Silver pentacle ring – Crone’s Cupboard
Sam Edelman Zoe booties

In other news, I’ve been stricken with some sort of virus. It is yet to be determined whether it’s the cold or flu—but either way, it’s miserable, and I’ll probably be spending the next few days huddled up in bed. Keep your distance.

It Was a Terrible Cloud at Twilight

2009-11-08T03:32:28Z

I picked up this book of poetry by Alessandra Lynch two summers ago on a whim, browsing through bookstore racks in Hanover, New Hampshire for something to marvel at. I do not regret my decision. Turns out she’s pretty awesome.

Lynch’s poems are like sparks that ignite some part of nature—its memories, colors, abstractions. There is something very odd and rare about these poems, something I can’t always grasp before it floats away and lingers somewhere just out of reach, leaving behind it a parade of images. At times it’s a bit of a tease, but I like that sometimes.

Here’s a taste—a few of my favorites.

_________

Birthday

Some of the wishes were scared of the dark and pink
and blue and the planet at large.

Some had tender feet, slightly barbed
by paper clips and wire,
picked guitars and a violin’s absent string,
lost parades of forks and knives.

So they winged it,
away from ribbons and balloons, spinning
into the sky
like maple-leaf copters,
like bright little wing-bones of ants,
while the candles they’d abandoned sputtered and sank,
and the ghostly flames staggered, flagged
and paused in the wake:

Upon a bucket of rose-skulls
Upon the moon’s lonely talon
Upon the dying man tugged back to life
Upon the dead man strolling into the room
Upon a silver-horned bicycle and a whirring hat
Upon a bell for a dove
Upon the end of fog the sage fields rising
Upon the hook-winged crow wheeling its blackness
Upon city-smoke confounded by the clarity of twig and feather
Upon yellow ribbon against yellow stars

The wishes were not all sublime—some cantankerous—
dirty and grim, sad, and many sweeping by
lost from the original mouth and mind
that hoisted them into the air.

For years I stood watching them while behind me
my house burned and my land and the forests beyond.

_________

A Letter. Like Blazing.

When I rose from the ditch
I left a swift petal
in lieu of presence

& found you in a slink of otter-
damp river, wearing the secret
hinge of a smile

& when you unbuttoned
the stars from navy

midnight & wind fell
cold out of velvet & my
stilled door blew open

& when your hard gold
hook swerved & pressed, the twilight

thistles by my river stiffened
& thrust into the sky that had been hurting

all morning for your purple voice, flecked, glittering

& when we swung through, pirating our private eye-
patched afternoon, the local bees shimmered in their grove with what blazed

between your hips & mine:
maple & pine-tar
& the terrible knowing of going not gone.

_________

Icicles

Those brothers banged them till they fissured,
fell to snow. They used sticks or bats
or stones. Sometimes missed. Sometimes split
the glimmering to a shatter, a cough
of electric dust—the burning stickled
their skins. Those brothers said nothing
was good about them—they damaged the eaves
and dragged the house down—said they were
a poor excuse for rain or any form
of weeping, streaking through their freeze.
But I longed for them to stay, longed
for their elegance to last,
the tiny silver cities and gold
sea illuminating their edges,
the slender bodies hanging
impeccably from the eaves, barely
hanging from anything. They were miracles,
their points dissolving in the smoldering
grip of a hand that could
end it all. Any hand.

_________

Piece by Piece He Went
for Bill

First, his blue toe.
Then, his calf up to the hipbone.
He thinned to a frame.

Fireflies faltered, lit into
his bony lattice, the fretted ribs, mating
between collarbone and pelvis

till the whole leg fell off and inside
he was all air and brightness and treefrogs—

(bluethroated crickets struggled through his beard,
a meadow rose from the cave of his stomach)

—we tried to catch their tender bodies,
their thrumming hearts
that longed to be let back

into the wild yellow grass—no matter how
rotten with dew, no matter how
darkened by rain, no matter.

_________

In the Yard,

I am raking through stars—
Their faces, damp and yellow,
won’t pick up.

I smell their tail-smoke
in the red oak, singed.
Its soft, tarnished arms
bothered by wind.

It was how many
pinned? How many stiffly
shot to harrowed dirt, blackly
pitting the earth?

In the pale aftermath,
the rain could not
tap music
into them. The moon could not
calculate, but dimly faced

the fading scarlet outcasts
in skinflint hats,
those wetted and gassed.

Low on the branch, low
on the rack, a few
freezing notices,

colorless maps—
not stars, not leaves—we rake
through—we hang back.

_________

On Balloons That Have Hissed Out

We were having a picnic when we found them.

Like abandoned petals
(pale magnolia choked and flushed, bursting in flustered bloom)
(dogwood petal unpacked from the dark trunk, freed from its floating
act to a yellow blister)
—one a silky blue ear
wilting on the hot-top tar
—one a cut-up cloud
that gave its last white gasp
—one a purple scab softened and bloated
by rain, peeled from its original skin.

These pieces were want-to-be sails
with their tiny muster—now
grounded after such short drifts of purposelessness
wherein they’d pressed up
the air, swell-headed and empirical—nodding
to the elms and helicopters and awnings and swings.

Remember all the air that put them there?
Remember the helium years
that filled their heads to a colorful bouquet
tossed up like giant roses and oversized carnations
at the matador-sky’s cloaked face
at the ballerina-cloud’s waxy poise
at the president of wind that must deadhead
anything thrown, any ecstatically flung thing
bloom or balloon or bomb—

dull shreds
in disarray on the dirt—
how modest their hiss
when all the air fled.

_________

Hope you all are having a magical weekend.

Wardrobe Wednesday – M to the J

2009-11-05T06:07:27Z

For Halloween this year, I decided to evoke the man I most admire (too bad I’m not much of a dancer). His playful nature, unwavering strength, impeccable fashion sense, staggering talent, and pure, loving heart may be ignored by others–but they will never be ignored by me. Not a chance.

Me attempting a dance pose in towering faux Balenciagas.

Ah–there it is.

I plan to incorporate the glove into my wardrobe whenever I feel the boogie. No lie.

I love you all.

Here’s to Michael Jackson. Long live the legend.

Black felt fedora – eBay
Double-breasted military jacket – Forever 21
Silver structured shoulder pad top – ASOS
Silver leggings – Pink Ice
Rhinestone glove – eBay (Hong Kong)
Zoe harness boots – Sam Edelman

Alexander McQueen Spring 2010 RTW

2009-11-03T01:59:41Z

No words necessary. Though I will say this: I thought architectural shoes may have reached their limit, and I am once again proven wrong. Bravo.

All hail tribal babes, racy monarchs, dominatrix robots and vampy figure skaters. You leave me speechless and on my knees. Well done, Alexander. Take your accolades back to your whimsical dream circus.

Wardrobe Wednesday – Black Velvet

2009-10-29T20:55:30Z

Throughout my youth (from the late 80s to the early millennium) I was a huge fan of velvet. It was riddled throughout my wardrobe, and my favorite things were my purple and black velvet dresses. After high school ended, it kind of went off my radar. I thought it had gone out of fashion, and though I’m not one to follow trends, I couldn’t bring myself to wear it again–until now.

Okay, so this one’s actually velour, not velvet. But I have another velvet dress on the way, and I’m glad to see that velvet and velour are back full-swing (outside of frumpy track suits). I bought this on a whim, and I haven’t felt so happy with an outfit in years. It was so simple–but wearing this tunic while running errands, riding buses, grocery shopping, and going to school kept me happy the entire day. I didn’t want to take it off. That is how clothes should make you feel.

Black velour tunic – Victoria’s Secret
Black opaque tights – We Love Colors
‘Photo’ wedge buckle boots – Jeffrey Campbell
Heart zirconia stud earrings & ring – gifts

Sorry for the lateness. Next week I’ll be posting photos of my Halloween costume. Hope you can’t wait. I can’t. Enjoy dressing up.

Toybox (October 24, 2009)

2009-10-30T04:48:58Z

Guess what tonight is? Thrill the World! Just in time for Halloween. That means that after midnight on Sunday, October 25 (precisely 12:30am GMT/UTC–please correct for your time zone), thousands of people will be dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at the same time! Clearly, you should too. Visit the website for more info, including plenty of info and videos on learning the dance.

P.S. If you have trouble loading any pages on the website, try again–they’re up and running, and are probably suffering from too many visitors.

And as if that weren’t enough: for those of you who haven’t heard it, here is the official, previously unreleased “This Is It,” which Jackson originally recorded in 1983 (permanent video link here and here):

For those interested, the new album will be available worldwide on October 26 & 27. Check out the official website for more info.

Also, these Thriller headphones are ridiculous. Go. Marvel.

Did you notice this is turning into an MJ post? It’s out of my hands now.

On another note, here is a fascinating article about Michael Jackson’s children, and the life they shared with him. This also offers a brief look into Jackson’s life before his death and what will follow for everyone involved. It’s unbiased, informative, telling, interesting, and at times lighthearted–definitely worth a read.

If you haven’t checked out Agyness Deyn’s MJ tribute editorial for Harper’s Bazaar in September (sample image above), you ought to do that. It’s a little scary, but the clothes are great.

And speaking of Bazaar, Janet Jackson did their October cover shoot–and there’s a great interview with her (her first since Michael’s death), which details her current projects and future plans, as well as a glimpse of her last days with Michael, their relationship from childhood to adulthood, and how she’s dealing with his passing. A brief read, but a worthy one.

Can you guess who I’m being for Halloween? Let’s pray my glove gets here in time. I promise photos.

And so, in the spirit of Halloween and all that is good-hearted, I must share with you the Cult of Michael Jackson–based on the teachings of MJ, with a chapel for Jacksonites in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Visit the website to gawk, check out the artwork, view and download the scripture (it’s hilarious and spiritual), and partake in the 10 Laws of the Boogie. I sure did.