Thursday, November 15, 2012

who/what/wear

Name Maia Starr

Age I have been on this planet for one quarter of a century and then some...

Occupation  Freelance Writer & Nightlife Blogger

What's your major fashion weakness?

I have a really tough time buying pants.  This dates back to early childhood - my mother couldn't get me to wear anything other than a pink or purple skirt.  While I've progressed to wearing different colors, I can't seem to make myself wear pants.  There's always a skirt or dress that I'd rather buy.  Three months out of the year, this isn't a problem, but I live in New York.  December through February you can find me quivering in my boots and minis.



What's your favorite thing about Dress The Population? 

The wearability, and the versatility of many of the pieces.  Particularly this dress - I could wear it with sheer stockings and stilettos if I were going to a benefit or wedding.  In this case, I had about thirty different place to go - uptown and downtown - and so I needed to keep it chic enough for fancy-pants Midtown, but edgy enough to navigate Lower Manhattan post-Sandy.

Where were you going, exactly?


First I had dinner at ALTA with my friend Gatsby on West 10th Street because I was writing a focus piece on downtown restaurants in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy...Dining out downtown is a huge deal right now!  Restaurants lost a lot of money - and so did the people who work in them!  Then, I had to go to Beauty & Essex on the Lower East Side because I had to swing through for a friend's birthday.  Gatsby wanted to change so we headed to her apartment in the Windsor Arms.  It took her forever to change so naturally I took some pictures of myself lounging on her bed.  The bottom left picture is of me finding out they were - for some sad reason - not giving out free champagne in the ladies room of Beauty & Essex.  Usually they do!  We moved the party to the bar at The St. Regis all the way uptown, which is where you see me in front of a fireplace in the bottom right picture.  That dress went everywhere!

Tell us more about your styling...

It's not that unusual that a night out in New York will take you from a dive bar to a restaurant to a midtown hotel and vice versa.  Fortunately, you can wear vintage leather just about everywhere.  I loved the way the roughness of the leather worked in juxtaposition to the utter glam of the dress.

I added an ivory and silver clutch to lighten things up...usually I hate carrying clutches because I leave the everywhere, but this one just worked so well with the sparkle of the dress.

My lipstick is NARS Red Lizard.  It's a great red.  

My boots are Diesel from about four or five years ago.  I bought them with my Dad in SoHo when we were supposed to be picking out Christmas Gifts for my Mom.

The leather jacket is a vintage score...if I told you where I scored it, I'd have to kill you.

What are your favorite brands? 

Usually I'm partial to Marc Jacobs, or for fancier occasions, Ted Baker or Nicole Miller. and then other than that I shop vintage or online boutiques like NastyGal and Lulus.  There's nothing I hate more than Tory Burch flats. 



Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Party Time! Fabulush.

Don't mind me, I'm test-driving an outfit for a party tomorrow night.

It's never too soon to start building an outfit from the SHOES up.


You saw it here first - spikes can be dainty.

These colorblocked (super on-trend) wedges are available HERE on FLIRTNATION.COM.

So sweet.

The handbag also is from FlirtNation.com, and while they no longer have it in stock, you can find many other cute bags on their site under accessories.

Here's the whole look:


The dress was thrifted, but any black lace dress will do if you're trying to break some rules and mix black with brown as I did here...

Finally, I'll leave you with the biggest trendsetter in all the world.

HE MIXES BLACK & TAN ALL DAY EVERY DAY!


BJ Buford the Pug.  TasteMaker.  Innovator.  King of Cute.

xOxO

Monday, September 24, 2012

Brooklyn Brunch

A Brooklyn Brunch that lasted til 7 PM

My friends and I have no concept of time.

Needless to say, when I got home from Brunch I ate dinner...


My sunglasses are from one of the vendors on St. Marks, my jacket is Levi's 501.  My shoes (which are barely visible in this shot as they match the cement) are thrifted little booties.  I'll take another pic so you can see the detail.  The shirt under the jacket is another gem from FlirtNation.com.

You can see the shirt a little better in this instagram...It's really cute and it has a hi-low style that's so hot right now.  I paired it with thrifted red corduroys but I think I'll also try it with a body-con mini at some point.



The shirt is still available online - click HERE to shop the chiffon denim shirt...

Here's another view of my outfit outside, looking up at an amazing EAGLE mural that quickly became my obsession:

Hello, Mr. Eagle.

Lastly, I've included a detail shot of the boots (thrifted) since they blend in with the concrete, and a close up of my belt.  The Southern Comfort buckle belonged to my father in the sixties.  One day, while in a thrift store on a shopping expedition, the dude behind the counter offered me $100 for it - which means it is probably worth a lot more.  Yes, I am bragging. 




Ciao for now...

Saturday, September 15, 2012

RED black & GOLD for San Gennaro!



Celebrating my Italian Heritage...by flirting with cops and eating street meat!




San Gennaro:  What's not to like?

Well, actually...a lot.  Streets overflowing with tourists (many intoxicated), weird old guys, and the excess roaming into SoHo and thus disrupting my shopping. But my girl Erica and I had a great time on Saturday.

What's to like about San Gennaro?  The food!  And the refillable frozen drinks!

Sunglasses brought to you courtesy of five dolla sunglasses on St. Mark's Place.  You know how I do. 


AND MY OUTFIT!  I'm wearing a vintage school-girl style dress, and old Nannette Lepore kneesocks. For accessories, I added a FlirtNation.com belt that you can purchase HERE, which goes perfectly with my trusty Marc Jacobs bag.  Nothing goes better than black, gold, and red. 

There are tiny gold crucifixes in my ears, but since I was already wearing so much gold and the FlirtNation.com belt is such a statement piece I didn't wear much else in the way of jewelry.



And my shoes make me a little sad because I purchased them at Irregular Choice in SoHo, which closed.

Bye-bye Beach!

Sixties-Inspired Montauk Dinner Party Outfit...

This is probably the best background I've posed against yet.


This dress is my favorite vintage find of all time...I bought it for $5 at Aardvarks in Los Angeles and it fits me as though it has been tailored for me.

You may recognize my shoes...I rock them a lot.  They're Dolce Vita's that I purchased from FlirtNation.com a while back.

Here I am drinking a rose while I waited for the rest of my friends to get dressed.  I love this pic.  I feel like I look like a Stepford wife.


This final pic is ripped from Instagram.  My friend Kevan (who works for Marc Jacobs Men's!) and I are ready to go...You can see my sunnies well, here.  They're from Guess and I wore them in my last pre-Montauk post.


Next week I have some cool Fall posts comin' up...but this is totally a good transition outfit that I would be down with rocking through the end of September.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Roof Romp Pre Montauk

I'm finally escaping NYC for Montauk for the long weekend tonight after my friends finish their bartending shifts!!

Yesterday I was working out of my colleagues apartment on East 10th Street and since we were taking portraits of one another for our Company's website, I decided to strong-arm him into helping me with photos for my blog as well.

Here's my layered outfit since I constantly catch colds in the summer due to the way people pump their AC:


Let's break it down:

The adorbs chambray shirt on top is from my recent obsession, FlirtNation.com.  It's made to be tied like that (IMHO) but you can also just button it, too.  If you look at the model in the link below, she just buttoned it with a pair of white jeans and looks fly as all hell.

  I'm wearing a size Medium and I'm generally a 4-6 on top but I like my sleeves long and I can't stand stuff that's too tight.  


Here's another view of the top.  I layered a bralette from Free People underneath.



Yeah, the sunglasses are hot too.  My Dad bought them for me from Guess (how Italian-princess is that?) so they were seriously over eighty dollars which I usually don't do.

(I oft leave my sunglasses in fitting rooms because I have a shopping addiction.)

Plus, Guess is kind of tacky, but Daddy and I were in Midtown so I had to think quick about what I wanted and where I could get it before the money stopped burning a hole in his pocket.






Yeah, the skirt is poofy for days.  It's from Ted Baker's Womenswear Collection which I found in my "Happy Place," Bloomingdales SoHo.  

I bought it full price but I saw it on sale afterword.

And finally, what you've all been waiting for:


Shoes!  Marc by Marc Jacobs Resort Wedges from two years ago.  I don't recommend wearing these out at night if you plan on traipsing around the scummy sidewalks of the L.E.S. and you're as clumsy as I am, but they make good day wedges...

Off to 'tauk!




Thursday, August 30, 2012

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