...And yes, I am drinking wine out of a coffee mug. Because I keep it classy like that.
My under-$150 gift solution #1: A great pair of beat-up checkered Vans have been synonymous with teenage dude cool ever since a young Sean Penn donned them in the seminal 1980's teen comedy 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High'. As much as the fashion elitist part of you may scoff at the notion of gifting anyone, no matter their age or social status, with such a pair of shoes, you may want to check THIS out before you make any rash judgements either way: for a starting price of only $50 you can not only give the little dude in your life a pair of kicks that simply ooze laid-back cool, but more importantly the chance to play designer for a day with Design-Your-Own-Vans. Do-It-Yourself for the internet generation has never been so easy!
My under-$150 gift solution #2: You may have noticed that this guy is always, always walking around with his headphones on, be they the gigantic studio kind or the ubiquitous white iPod earbuds. If you're anything like me, you undoubtedly find it completely obnoxious when this individual has a conversation with you with his headphones still in his ears, but you think their audiophilia and obsession with all things music to be ever so slightly charming all the same. The Ion TTUSB Turntable with USB Record is the perfect gift for this person on your list because nothing warrants street cred with the teenage set more than having a cooler collection of vinyl than everyone else (never mind the fact that this particular machine actually converts such vinyl into MP3 format!) Throw in a couple of classic LP's and these nifty wall-hanging frames to ensure that this dude definitely has the most rad dorm room on the block...when he finally gets to university, that is. Turntable, $91, LP frames, $19, classic albums on vinyl that they will appreciate more and more with age = priceless.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's next installment of Modern-Guilt.com's Holiday Gift Guide for under $150 series!
My under-$150 gift solution #2: Not all designer items are that expensive, and if this person on your list is anything like mine and therefore currently stuck in the treacherous ugliness that only bitterly cold weather brings, a couple of not-knit-by-grandma outerwear accessories may be your first-class ticket to having the coolest gift under the tree for them this holiday season. Be it Miu Miu or Missoni, your Manolo-lover is sure to appreciate a cozy, functional beanie that doesn't make her look like a cross between the Abominable Snowman and a creepy cat burglar. Missoni beanie, $75, Miu Miu beanie, $60. More selection and matching accessories can be found at net-a-porter.com
My under-$150 gift solution #1: Sure, he's not particularly fond of clothing or home decor, but what if you found a way to parlay these types of items into gadget-related gifts? Thankfully for us, the brilliant geniuses over at Throwboy.com have done exactly this. Show the Machead in your life the above photo and watch them squeal and coo like a fashion blogger does over pictures of the latest Rodarte collection. Available for purchase here, at $29 each or $149 for the set of six as shown.
My under-$150 gift solution #2: If you've ever heard the words "If it doesn't have an LED screen, I probably don't like it" uttered by this person, you'll know that often the calibre of gadget is less important to them than the fact that the item in question is a gadget or computerized device of some sort - I have, in the past, made the mistake of doubting this and figuring that everyone appreciates a nice $600 designer coat when this is in fact NOT THE CASE. Above note an assorted variety of small, inconsequential electronic devices which are sure to please this person on your list far more than that pair of expensive jeans you were eyeing for them. Plus an array of presents under the tree is just fun for everyone, isn't it? Clockwise, left-to-right: Fruit Powered Clock $18, LED Umbrella $24.99, Giant Ear Bud Speakers $40, Electronic Bubble Wrap Keychain $9.99, Rocket Alarm Clock $20, Portable Electronics Charging Station $29.99
Stay tuned for the continuation of the gift guide on Sunday, at which point I'll be covering off the next subject of interest: The "I-Only-Wear-Manolos" Best Friend/Mother/Sister/Person...
I'm certain that you are all beginning to think I have the worst, most proletarian taste in the world, what with the Foot Locker hoodie yesterday and now a Guess Jeans shirt. Alas, the Dolce & Gabbana offerings of plaid shirts and lumberjack dresses are out of my price range at this point in time, and if I can find a similarly designed top at a fraction of the price (which consequently allows me to look the way I want to and keep up my standard of living in all other respects), what does it matter to me what the tag on the inside of it says? Truth is, it doesn't, and I'm happy that such places exist at which I can get my affordable fashion fix!
As much as I love fashion, I believe it's a grave mistake to take it too seriously - so to complete my mall fashion extravaganza look, take note of the grey high-waisted Urban Planet jeans and Forever 21 oxford lace-up platform pumps. Even my black leather blazer, as much as I adore it and want to wear it every single day forever, is from Danier.
Regardless of the fact that every single item I'm wearing came from the cheesiest mall stores imaginable, this turned out to be a quite practical look for an evening that consisted of a dental appointment and a stroll through one of the cuter areas of the city, and one that I quite liked for that matter.
Wearing 
One of the highlights of the past couple of days was the Black Sunday Toronto Fashion Bloggers Brunch, as organized by the perpetually lovely and charming Danielle of FinalFashion.ca. The fact that this tiny bit of space on the internet is bringing me to events like this one, which are filled with interesting, informative and like-minded individuals is really beyond anything I could have imagined at Modern-Guilt.com's inception just a few short months ago. A huge thank you to Anita, Gail, Danah, Jas, Carolyn, Eden, Danielle and Serah-Marie for being so welcoming and lovely, and moreover some of the best conversationalists I've had the pleasure of encountering in recent history.
In other weekend news, G and I finally got around to watching Lagerfeld Confidential on Saturday evening, which was a hugely inspiring and entertaining little film. One of the best parts had to be the outtakes of Karl photographing Mariacarla for a Chanel campaign in the streets of Paris with Emmanuelle Alt and a bunch of other impossibly chic Parisians in tow. It was absolutely lovely to see that, regardless of scale, equipment and the amount of attendants on hand, all photographs are just photographs, and are taken in what is essentially the exact same way at the end of the day.
On a more personal fashion-y note, I did absolutely no shopping this weekend (Black Friday). I'm doing absolutely no shopping today (Cyber Monday). And, at the moment, I generally just want to quit shopping for all time. The holiday season always has a tendency to put me in this kind of mood, what with all of the circulating stories of sickeningly crazed consumerism reaching brand new moral lows and record financial highs. As such, I've basically decided to buy as little as possible this holiday season and instead rely upon my own creativity and knowledge of the people on my 'shopping list' to create something wonderful and memorable for the ones I love; I may even do a DIY Holiday Gift Guide at some point in the near future, so watch out for that!
I obviously have plenty more to say about this and that and all the rest, but I don't believe it's all going to fit inside of one Monday post. I hope you all had amazing Thanksgiving weekends, and promise to of course be back tomorrow with even more outfits and ramblings and everything else you've come to expect from G and I - however, if you're unable to wait that long, don't forget about our brand-new Twitter account which we've been updating in a manner that borders on obsessive.
Wearing
I've been tagged by the lovely Sueper of The Sueper Blog to share with ya'll the contents of the gigantic satchel full of receipts and gum wrappers that I carry around with me (more commonly known as my purse). The contents are more or less staples of anyone's purse, and are as follows: concealer, Dr. Pepper lip gloss, office and apartment building access cards, headphones, wallet, keys and suede gloves. The only integral thing that this photo lacks is my iPhone, and that would be for the very logical reason that the only thing a camera cannot see is itself (one of my favourite lines from the book Robot City which I've been trying to figure out a way to re appropriate into the blog for the past couple of days...yes, I am a huge sci-fi nerd).
I leave this tag open to anyone who wants to complete it! I hope that a lot of you do, as I'm sure most of you out there have much more thrilling purse contents than mine.
This little black Erin Fetherston for Target dress was purchased almost one year ago to the day on a trip to Michigan for American Thanksgiving. I've determined that it is entirely impossible for me to go to the U.S. without visiting at least two Targets along the way, and this unfortunately always tends to remind me of how bleak life in Canada sans Target is.
I'm a big fan of this dress (and the rest of the $500+ haul I pulled out of such suburban Michigan Target), and was glad to have the opportunity to wear it last night when G took us out for a romantic pizza and wine extravaganza at a nearby Italian restaurant. We did, of course, take photos on the way - G really seems to be mastering this new 'night photography' business, and I must say it's quite fun to carry around a big external flash and witness the befuddled looks of passerby wondering what I'm doing standing there with it in an alley doorway! Fortunately for us, most people are too self-interested and/or too cold outside to really care.
Wearing
I now present to you what is perhaps my second DIY success ever (the first being the studded boots in yesterday's post of course). While bleaching a pair of old, cheap jeans is admittedly not the most difficult DIY in the world to complete, I am nonetheless proud of myself for actually doing it without entirely ruining them...then again, the point was for them to be entirely ruined, so perhaps I succeeded in that? I don't know, and moreover don't feel like playing semantics with myself this morning.
These jeans (which I am now madly in love with and want to wear all the time) are the result of spending Saturday night at home with a cheese grater, jug of liquid laundry bleach, bucket and and a sponge. And before you ask: yes, I actually do enjoy Saturday night 'arts and crafts for a 3 year old' as G likes to call it, regardless of the fact that I've reminded him time and time again that a 3 year old shouldn't really be handling a two litre bucket of bleach.
I've had this Keith Richards t-shirt for ages, but unfortunately rarely wear it as a result of it being from what I like to call the Toronto version of Hot Topic...a shop called Black Market, located on Queen Street West. While Black Market does sell a certain amount of proper vintage clothing, the rest of their wares consist of mass-printed 'punk rock' tees which are, by way of their very creation and place of origin, not punk rock at all. So it's kind of a lame t-shirt by all means, but from time to time I certainly cannot resist the appeal of a young Keith Richards' face staring up at me from my t-shirt drawer.
In other news, I've determined that I do not own enough winter-appropriate clothing. I can't keep wearing tank tops and tiny, thin sweaters under wool coats and expect to not freeze. A thirfting trip for a pile of chunky knit sweaters and various sweater dresses and whatnot is definitely in order. Because yes, it's still cold here. And yes, it will continue to be for approximately forever, or rather, until it's not anymore. Getting more specific than that is just depressing for the time being.
Wearing
Today's photo set was taken yesterday on my first excursion out of domestic comforts all weekend. If I wanted to get all pretentious and philosophical about things I would say that I'm wearing all grey to represent the middling state of my health at this point in time, as I am feeling neither black nor white and instead residing, emotionally and physically, in an ambivalent and undecided state. Alas, I am not pretentious or [generally] philosophical when it comes to clothes, so what I'm wearing basically comes down to the fact that layering is necessary in the cold/these clothes are comfortable for a walk about town/I like the colour grey - and there you have it, my outfit inspiration happily has essentially nothing to do with anything at all!
To expand upon the subject of clothing a little bit further, as it is, for all intensive purposes, the driving force behind this blog, I completed a couple of wicked cool DIY projects this weekend while bored and couch-ridden. One of them will definitely make its appearance on here tomorrow, so stay tuned for that...I'm generally not so good at DIY, but this one turned out particularly awesome if I do say so myself. I'm still unsure as to how I feel about the other one I completed (it involved a bunch of silver paint and way too much time on my hands), but I'm certain it will make its way onto me at some point or another, wherein you can either laugh at my kindergarten-level painting skills or be impressed by my ingenuity....I'm somewhere between the two at the moment.
Wearing
This photo set is real-life as opposed to fashion in the sense that what I am wearing has far more to do with practicality than anything else. As you can see, many of the streets here in Toronto are currently sheeted in ice, making creative footwear choices next to impossible unless I'm taking a cab to somewhere indoors or, similarly, carry my 'good shoes' in my bag until I reach my indoor destination; this brings me to my justification of the Ugg monstrosities currently residing on my feet - they're warm, I don't slip and fall in them and the fact that I dislike them on an aesthetic level results in me not getting upset when they're damaged by various outdoor elements. And I walk basically everywhere I go, so these are all entirely necessary qualities in a shoe for me. So before ya'll go and judge me for wearing them, please take a moment to think about my struggle.
My plans for this weekend consist of nothing more and nothing less than getting tons of rest, acquiring new outfits for my poppit on Little Big Planet, and drinking as much hot lemon water as humanly possible (not only is it good for me, it's also the most delicious warm drink in the world). And I'm looking forward to it more than I have any weekend in quite a while, because I know that it's exactly what I need right now. I hope each and every one of you goes and has the weekend you want and need as well, and I look forward to coming back on Monday and catching up with you!
Wearing
So I've determined that this dress is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever found on a Club Monaco sale rack, and unknowingly so at the time of purchase. When it was bought by yours truly two years ago I merely liked the drop-waist 1920's Gothic ballerina style of it (do those terms even make sense together?) and the sale price, as I remember desperately needing a party dress that day for a reason which escapes me now. I didn't even try it on, but then again I rarely do when shopping.
Two years later, and this dress continues to be one of my favourite things in my closet. The crumply crepe-like bubble skirt (you can seriously manipulate it into whatever shape you want it to be!), the various shoulder straps, the sheer overlay...there's a lot about this riff on the LBD that pretty much shouldn't work under any circumstances, but somehow it does and it's fabulous...or at the very least I feel fabulous in it.
As you've no doubt noticed, there has been an increasing amount of indoor photos recently, due to the fact that it looks like this outside:
Not only is this causing a lack of outdoor daily outfit photos, it's also making me congested and unable to breathe through my nose properly. My, my, how horribly jealous I am of all of you Australians right now, what with the beginning of glorious summer and whatnot.
This is one of the dresses that I briefly alluded to acquiring last week, and of which the only slightly problematic thing is the length; it skims my ankles but does not quite cover them, making shoe choices, at least in terms of the shoes I own, extremely difficult for the time being. I feel like a pair of brown leather riding boots would work semi well, but since I don't own anything even remotely akin to riding boots as it stands, I merely have my imagination (and potentially really useless and bad sketches of what I'm visualizing) to count on when attempting to make such decisions.
I'm currently reading Patti Boyd's autobiography, which is not only insanely inspiring on the fashion end of things (between her, Anita and Marianne, it's impossible to decide who had the best wardrobe), but it's also the stuff that rock n' roll fantasy is made of and for that reason alone I love it. I will admit that I was not a normal child in the sense of having had posters of boy bands on my bedroom walls...I was far more into cut-out photos of young Eric Clapton from magazines.
This unfortunately did not do wonders for my early social life, but regardless, my long-standing crush on Cream-era Clapton has stood the test of time, and the fact that Patti married both George Harrison and E.C. is a fact that I have always, always been insanely jealous of in a weird, nostalgic kind of way. Naturally I missed the boat on pretty much everything I am jealous of Patti for having...so if I can't live it, I can live through it vicariously, right? And this is the reason this book of hers is perhaps my new favourite thing ever.
Wearing
First and foremost, my seemingly-useless trip to H&M to check out the Commes de Garcons pieces last Friday afternoon (how I even thought it remotely possible for there to be anything left, I don't know) turned out to be extraordinarily fruitful for me. The insanely tall black patent wedge platforms that I'm wearing in these photos were just dying to be bought by yours truly, and I haven't really taken them off for any extended period of time since. Regardless of the fact that they're open-toed and not necessarily what one would call winter-appropriate footwear, I can definitely feel a new shoe obsession coming on...for one, they elevate my feet enough that any precipitation on the ground becomes completely irrelevant, which is nice.
The acquisition of the wedge platform awesomeness contributed to the wholly wonderful weekend had, which was busy, busy, busy and cold, cold, cold as all of you Torontonians out there are surely well aware of. One of the significant highlights of the weekend was seeing the first snowfall of the year on Saturday evening while at a party a.k.a. the only snowfall that is magical and gorgeous...after that they just become restrictive and depressing.
In the spirit of being honest and transparent, I will put it out there that today's photos are not entirely accurate, as they were actually taken on Sunday morning, hence my gigantic hair and even more gigantic sunglasses - remember how I mentioned we were at a party on Saturday night? Yeah, so this is one of my most comfortable go-to outfits, and since I haven't been feeling all that creative recently in the spectrum of dressing, it's basically what I've been wearing in some form or another for the past few days, add/minus blazer, hat, t-shirt, shoes, etc. I definitely blame my full-of-stuff-but-empty-of-inspiration-closet for this state of affairs, and am therefore in the process of DIY-ing as much as humanly possible for shake things up a little bit.
I've been tagged by two of my favourite fashion bloggers out there, Taghrid and Merkovsky, to list 6 unimportant things that make me happy, and consequently pass the tag torch to five other bloggers. Without further adieu, here goes it... 
3. Marker-like writing utensils. I would hand write with nothing but thin-tipped Sharpies for the rest of my life if it were even remotely possible.
5. There are truly very few feelings as good as finding something absolutely amazing at a thrift shop for little to no money. I know that this is a disgustingly obvious thing to say within the fashion blogosphere but I just can't help it, it's true!!!
Good morning dearest blogosphere! Now I've no idea what my intentions were with this particular look other than that it was freezing cold outside yesterday (hence the unflattering layering) and that I desperately need to get my hair done STAT (hence the weird headband thing which can best be described as an unsuccessful attempt at making my hair situation less bad). Regardless of what the intentions may have been behind this, it was indeed comfortable, kept me warm and didn't turn out as horribly visually as I fully expected it to, which is always a plus, no?
The weekend was entirely wonderful, the pinnacle of which was unearthing two mindblowingly amazing 1970's patterned jersey maxi dresses at the St. Lawrence Market yesterday morning. The first is from Saks Fifth Avenue circa 1974, and I have a nagging suspicion that the second is an actual Ossie Clark...oh, and both were acquired for a cool $35 sum total! The woman selling them obviously didn't recognize their value, but that works for me so I'm not going to complain even for a moment.
I know that it's unbearably geeky to admit to this, but I'm going to anyways so you can make fun of me later in the comments section if you must: the first thing I thought of when I awoke this morning was the aforementioned dresses, and moreover was sickeningly excited to run over to my closet and look at them in all of their glory. They're currently hanging in what I like to refer to as the closet's 'place of honour', which is where all of my new purchases that I'm to-die-for-in-love-with are placed prior to the first time they're worn.
Anyways, more on what I'm actually wearing today, as the dresses are quite obviously too special to be worn on a predictable Monday (I assure you that their coronation into my wardrobe will be far more grand than that). The black and white flats I'm wearing were purchased earlier in the week out of nothing less than complete desperation on my part, as I had been stomping about the city in 4 1/2 inch heels for hours upon hours and had stupidly forgotten to put flats in my bag before I left the apartment. Thankfully for me, Urban Behaviour exists and sells adorable little shoes like these for no more than $9.99 a pop.
The rest of today's outfit is pretty standard for me, but I will admit that I do enjoy breaking up my usual head-to-toe black ensembles with fun coloured stockings like these fuchsia ones. What I enjoy even more, however, is a gigantic mug of coffee early on a Monday morning...
Wearing
