Alaska memories before I'm Boise-bound

I've been busy photographing fabulous vintage gear for the revitalization of my Etsy site over the last day or so. Trying to get some things up before I head to Boise tomorrow to visit my sister, who this fall will start her third year of law school at the U of Idaho, where she's in the top 10 percent of her class and a member of the law review. (Overachieve much, 'Ree?)

Marie has been telling me how amazing it is there - how great the Greenways are and how she can walk the mile to work from her rental home downtown. There are rivers and mountains equidistant from the town. Everyone is healthy, happy and loves the outdoors.

And all I can think about is how many thrift stores a major state capitol with 190,000 folks in its environs can support.

Considering how well we get along, it's incredible how different Marie and I are. She is a total outdoors-woman, who is getting her degree in environmental law so that she can help save our rivers. (My family - God bless them for reals - is full of hard-core environmental do-gooders. I guess I qualify because I am big on recycling clothes?)

For the last six years,, Marie has spent her summers working as a river guide on a bald eagle preserve in Haines, Alaska. She met Jeff, her fabulous boyfriend, on a freakin' glacier, where he lives four months out of the year, leading day-long expeditions in Glacier Bay state park. For the last two years, Marie has been involved in some huge two-week trips down interior Alaskan rivers like the Alsek (the pics here came from one of those trips) that are sponsored by a Sierra Club-esque company.

My dad went out and did one of the trips last summer; he had a truly great trip and was just blown away by her professionalism and abilities. I picked him up from the airport when he got back from his trip and the only way I can describe his demeanor was blissed out. Dad and Marie are two peas in a pod when it comes to that kind of adventure - I'm more like my mom, who taught me everything I know about shopping and retail endurance - and he had had the time of his life. I am so happy they got to do that together.

The first summer Marie did the Alaska thing, I drove up with her. Yes, we drove, and it was easily the best road trip I've ever taken. The company was superb, of course, and was only matched by the scenery. I hope heaven looks like British Columbia. That's all I'm saying.

Once we got to Haines, we located the vintage Airstream trailer where Marie was to live that summer. It was on a river bank and had an unparalleled view of Rainbow Glacier - the landscape up there is just silly with them. It had no electricity or running water and two New Age hippies and their child (!) had been living there with their all winter. It was a bit, um, sour, if you get my drift.

While Marie was training for her first day on the glacier-fed river she would be working on for the next four months, I shifted into interior design mode, procuring her a new foam "mattress" and making new curtains from fabric I got at the little general store downtown. (Haines was the model for Cicily, Alaksa, in Northern Exposure, if that gives you any idea of where we were. It was just beyond great.)

When I left her a week later (I flew out of Haines in a two-seater bound for Juneau, where I caught a slightly larger craft), I felt good about it. She had made friends, of course, and seemed to love what she was doing. I can't wait to get to Boise to see how, six years later, this chapter of her life is shaping up.

And to shop, of course! Look for upcoming blogs featuring the thrifts and antique stores of Boise. Cheers!

The girl in the golden boots

The Dead Weather are on Conan tonight (he's turned me into a late-night talk show watcher with this new Tonight Show gig: love it - especially considering it comes on at 10:35 here, if that's even late night at all ...) and Allison Mosshart looks amazing. Her hair is super-dark and she has on a black cutaway jacket with large flat studs. Amazing.

When I saw The Kills open for the Raconteurs last fall, I couldn't take my eyes off Allison. There's something about how she holds herself - her confidence really shows through in the way she moves, not to mention how she dresses.

Among the things that transfixed me at the show was her faaabulous cuban heeled gold boots (she wore them tonight, too). In fact, seeing her in them, wearing them with tight black jeans and a long-ish leopard top and thin scarf, inspired me to find some of my own, dammit. When I was in NYC last October, I went to Trash & Vaudeville and found a pair of winkle pickers (very mod short booties, skinny at the ankle and super pointy), which also have that wonderful heel. But they were just too perfect looking. The key to her look, it seemed, was the careful imperfection of it all.

So, I searched everywhere on the internet for info on them and was thrilled to finally find out a few months ago via Derek Blasberg's interview with Allison in, um, Interview. You can read the whole thing here or check out this portion of the back-and-forth, including her propensity to re-wear favorite pieces ad naseum:

BLASBERG: The jeans you’re wearing look familiar.

MOSSHART: Embarrassingly enough, I think these are the exact same jeans I’ve worn on the past two tours.

BLASBERG: And the gold boots?

MOSSHART: I love my gold boots. Hedi Slimane made these, and now I have three pairs of the gold, plus pairs in every other color, in black, in patent. I have a friend [at Dior] who reorders a pair for me whenever mine get tired. I challenge anyone to show me a boot I like better.

Of COURSE they're custom-made by Hedi Slimane. Drat. If I wasn't so into her music and love clocking her look so much, I'd be hating on her right now.

Gratuitous Bruce butt shots

Saw a half-hour or so of Bruce Springsteen at Bonnaroo last weekend, enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Man, his band is tight.

So is his ass, which is something that a cameraman strategically positioned behind the Boss managed to zoom in on at least once every two minutes for a good two or three seconds.

I tried to get a good Shameless Butt Shot from our place in the crowd, but this is best I could do:

A time to rip, a time to sew, a time to blog

I should be sewing tonight, mending seams and the occasional tear on some pieces in the very vast stash of vintage clothes and accessories I picked up on my week-long shopping trek to NYC and back. But instead I'm baking a strawberry cake - using fresh strawberries and batter from scratch (the only way to bake) - and writing the first post for my new blog.

I'm going to avoid defining exactly what's going to go on here and just let it evolve organically. But I can assure you that a good 80 percent of what you read here will relate to clothes.

I am passionate about fashion - so much so that I have devoted the majority of my journalism career writing about style. These days, I also work as a stylist and sell vintage clothing here in Music City, which is much chicer than most folks give it credit for being.

But enough about my blog.

Let's talk about my outfit!

I met with Trisha Brantley of Hip Zipper Vintage today to discuss the upcoming Tomato Festival fashion show in East Nashville this afternoon and had her snap this picture of me, with her super-duper packed (and, indeed, super-duper in general) store in the background.

I'm wearing a black cotton spaghetti strapped smock top I got at Urban Outfitters eons ago but still wear all the time (I have no idea why I hitched it up like that); my Christopher Ross swan belt buckle (love!); the fabuloso metallic striped and dotted and flounced all over Marc Jacobs skirt I picked up in NYC two weeks ago (thank you, 70 percent off sale!); and some Donald Pliner purple velvet wedges I got at the inimitable Cool Springs discount shoe Mecca, Marti & Liz.

Because it's impossible for me to be serious when someone's taking my picture (I loath posing), we started cutting up, doing stupid poses. Therefore, in the picture below, I'm wearing the same outfit, but channeling one of those intense, self-consciously model-y model poses you see in high end fashion mags. Enjoy!