black & tan.

i was pleased as punch to fill in some of the more unnecessary gaps in my wardrobe (and some of the less-noticeable gaps, too) with a highly efficient trip to the thrift store saturday morning.

clockwise from upper left: $6 zip-up lace shirt - i cut off the sleeves and the weirdo oxford collar when i got home; this $10 fringed wiggle dress is the new crown jewel of my fall/winter wardrobe; i've been in need of a leather skirt for a good long while ($20 - steep!); this skirt is suede and $14 and i've worn it three different ways already. worth every penny. and the oh-so-carly simon hat in the middle? a last minute, $1.50 find. success x infinity.

PANDA HEAD MAG: issue 2

eeeeeeek! panda head mag: issue 002, fall 2008 is live, awake, and alert today at www.pandaheadmag.com. i could not be any more proud of this project, and i am so grateful to the following friends/contributors/all-around-good-guys:
breck brunson
chris chen
joel didriksen
elizabeth gorman
ben green
nilay lawson
lexie moreland
and jei thomas spatola.

this little mag quite literally could not exist without the amazing/fantastic/TIRELESS work of designer erik loften, so please do your very best to heap praise upon him in kind. and thank YOU so very much for your support and panda mag outclicks and, well, just for being you.
love,
morgan

big plans.

listopad sneak peek courtesy of listopad. who else?!

this weekend there are not one but TWO big events in my very own neighborhood: 

saturday is the grand opening of the listopad pop up shop at mercedes bien (2423 18th st NW). a heartfelt congratulations to the heretofore nomadic tribe that is the listopad girls, and to all of us as well for now having a permanent listopad fix! the party is from 12-4; expect lovingly culled vintage, cocktails, snacks, and DJ ris richards.

sunday! 10-5! crafty bastards arts & crafts fair is in its fifth year (and its fourth at the marie reed center). i've been so stoked to see the vendor list start to diversify - CB mainstays like daisy lacy and tina seamonster got this whole thing started (and, in the case of tina seamonster, literally keep it going), but it's a testament to the hard work of the city paper that the show has started to bring in not only the out-of-towners (see: loyalty and blood; elloh) but a whole crop of brand new local talent. i mentioned my friend this chickadee earlier this week; her little line of home goods and totes is, as one friend aptly puts it, "grandma style" in its flawless construction (but not aesthetic! her pieces have a definite vintage vibe, but always with a sense of humor). be on the lookout for her and boothmate dandelion blu among the 150+ craftsters, designers, bands, workshops, ETC on sunday.
and after that - rest up! panda head mag: issue 002 launches first thing monday morning...

the clash at BYT...

head to brightest young things for my column this week: the clash!

panda head mag issue 2: preview.

photos by joel didriksen.

camp zoe.

it's been trashed from the new york times on down, but i for one CANNOT stop thinking about the rachel zoe project - three weeks in a row i've actually made the effort to watch it in its time slot (as opposed to catching up, marathon-style, on weekends). yes, her speech and movement patterns tend towards the ADD, which can make it extremely frustrating to watch, but the woman's borrowing power is hypnotic; the designer guest spots are interesting when jacobs, karan, et al are talking about themselves in a non-zoe specific manner; and i do respect the career she's built around what she loves to do. it's so DC-aspirational. the creative economy in this city (as i know it, at least, and especially concerning fashion) runs mainly on the barter system. don't get me wrong - at this point i'm mostly content to not have it any other way - but we have a ways to go.

her day rate aside, my favorite part of the rachel zoe project has little to do with its content. for unkown reasons the closed captioning is stuck on the televison in my bedroom, and at least once per episode there's some glaringly phonetic, fashion-related misspelling. in episode 1 "lanvin" turned into "longvan," episode 2 saw "alaia" as "allaya," and my favorite so far was last night's translation of "skinny jeans" as "gay jeans." i fear/hope/pray for a demeulemeester reference...

up the bracket.

the giant popcorn ball in the sky.

tonight i went to the opening of the brand-new nanette lepore boutique in chevy chase. as you MAY be able to tell from the photo of the gigantor chandelier above, the space was pretty fantastic - as was the party itself. and the clothes, especially some of the vintage-inspired coats and beaded-to-the-hilt sweaterdresses, were just wow (check out the fall 08 show HERE).

now. i mentioned a few posts previous how interesting it was to attend events in DC with attendees whose neighborhoods clearly ranged from foxhall to columbia heights. whenever i get dressed i go for as exact a representation as possible of however i'm feeling at the moment - this process (however grueling) inevitably leads to The Perfect Outfit. this evening was no exception, and i think i was pretty accurate in channelling a freshly-showered pete doherty - a bowler hat, vintage tee, skinny white denim, a natty blue & white blazer and some sharp little patent oxfords - but apparently tuesday evenings in chevy chase call for a bit more SWANK. i'm not even lying - there were sequins, patent leather, and Jewelry to rival an awards show - and i was thisclose to wearing my converse. everyone looked stunning, for sure, and out of my element i was not, but now i know. chevy chase parties call for busting out the good stuff: erin fetherston-for-target, you may finally see the light of day...

me+metro photo by my date, this chickadee. more on her at the end of the week.

worn out at the threadbanger blog...

click for threadbanger and my worn out: street style picks!

au revoir, peewee.

yes, i did bring a fake chanel bag to the embassy of france. i got it at goodwill.

 photo by joel didriksen for BYT.

thursday night was the fashion of goodwill silent auction and runway show at the french embassy. i can't say enough about how awesome it was - the 1940s-inspired runway styling was so ladylike and insanely perfect (a firm handshake to em hall, the DC goodwill fashionista), and the company was a delight. besides the DC fashion writers and bloggers (brightest young things, cath and emily of listopad, the president wears prada, righteous (re)style, FW, and the anti-DC were all in attendance), the event was packed with people involved with and there in support of the training programs, education, and other good deeds of goodwill industries in the district. 

as excellent as the runway show was, my favorite part of the whole night was when the auditorium let out to both CREPES and RACKS UPON RACKS of goodwill clothing for sale. i was inspecting a chocolate brown-and-white african-print day dress when the smallest and cutest of Little Old Ladies came up and grabbed my arm. she was all, "that's my dress;" having already witnessed several incidences of same-time hanger-grabbing, i was getting ready to hand it over when she cleared things up: "no! i mean that WAS my dress..." she turned out to be such a WORLD TRAVELLER, buying the fabric in nairobi and later having the dress made up in geneva, all so one day she could donate it to the goodwill fundraiser for me to buy and wear to such exotic locales as the black cat backstage.  she was stoked and proceeded to show me exactly how the belt "worked" and i was just about dead thrilled over the whole thing, clearly, and $8.98 later it's in my closet. while i'd say a solid 80% of my wardrobe is thrifted, never have any of my pieces had such a specific history (well, except for those high-waisted shorts that came with a 1984 def leppard ticket stub. their poufy-banged, hot babe history was APPARENT); having scored such a thing on FRENCH SOIL makes it an unthinkable treasure. seriously.  

in summary: goodwill looks good, goodwill does good, goodwill is good. merci, goodwill.

THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.

issue 002 preview: photo by chris chen.

panda head mag: issue 002 launches in t-minus one week - monday, september 29 - but check www.pandaheadmag.com like NOW for a look at the brand new homepage by friend-til-the-end erik loften/vaktiva...

loose ends/tying knots,

morgan

chomp chomp chomp at BYT...

3, 2, 1, blast off.

photo by lexie moreland for BYT; that's shana of DC concierge at right.

monday night i went to the FW: fashion washington launch party. hosted by katharine weymouth and the washington post, it was basically everything you'd imagine from a party held at ben bradlee and sally quinn's mansion: it was swank as all get-out and i had a blast. FW went out with today's paper (and can be picked up at select hotels/salons/boutiques/THE LIKE); monthly issues will follow starting in november.
it's an exciting thing for DC, for sure - weymouth made a nice little speech at the party, mentioning that it took the post 40 years to get it together on the fashion end - and i'm excited to see where editor jennifer barger takes the project. the city is certainly primed for FW to take off running in any direction it chooses; over the last few years "old washington" has been more receptive to and interested in what's going on outside of its immediate circle (thanks, in no small part, to people like molly gannon [at the post], suzanne d'amato [formerly of the sunday source] and the patton group [OF EVERYTHING]). essentially, the downtown is mixing with uptown in a very non-DC kind of way, and it's a really interesting time to be here.
but oh yes - BACK TO THE PARTY. it was swell, it was (quite literally) hot as hell, there were one million cameras, and lexie moreland's full photo set (including more pictures of me, making both more and less attractive faces than the one above) can be seen over at brightest young things...

panda head mag: issue 2 preview

polaroid by lexie moreland.

NY fashion week at BYT...

...Again, some key trends from the last two seasons are still lingering (mainly all things sheer and black and leather), but they’re not unwelcome - Spring 09 saw more of a reinterpretation than Spring 08-to-Fall 08, which to me seemed like a cooler-weather translation of the exact same pieces. There are, of course, innovators, and one of my favorite NY shows was Marc Jacobs. It was totally unexpected and dark and strange but most importantly FRESH; as beautiful as some of the other shows were, they were also incredibly easy to categorize. Jacobs touched on trends but mostly seemed to go a bit insane - and it paid off. I was also way into Vena Cava’s slick Egyptian-inspired pieces, Phillip Lim’s and Peter Som’s rose-colored downtown femininity, Proenza Schouler’s bad-ass 90s power-bitch pieces, Jonathan Saunders’s circus act, and the minimal androgyny of Alexander Wang (duh)...
click for the rest of my take on NY fashion week: spring 09 at BYT!

boomin' granny.

before throwing myself full-force into spring 09 obsessions, i spent some time this week going back through the fall/winter shows. i had completely forgotten how much i liked chloe this season - my faves were the looks i can only describe as "grandma socialite" and "downtown librarian" (see above). i've got a couple of dress-up events ON THE HORIZON and i'll be taking both into account when figuring out the wardrobe. oh, and i am now totally on the warpath for anything GREEN - preferably a version of those little booties at right...

worn out at threadbanger...

click for threadbanger and my worn out: street style picks!

you are, incidentally, my poison of choice.

Jukebox The Ghost - 'Victoria' Official Video from whataboutme on Vimeo.

my absurdly talented friend shervin helped get this video together for local faves jukebox the ghost. enjoy.

style mine at BYT...

vroom vroom: click for BYT and style mine: girl on a motorcycle!

BOGO.

i came this close to getting the red then changed my mind last sec. i'm so not mod.

i'll see YOU in 5-10 business days. prepare for inevitable scuffing and a season-long marriage to my black skinny jeans...the three of us are going to be very happy together.

like birthday cake.

how could i have forgotten?? panda head blog turned terrible, terrible 2 on september 1! to celebrate, here's a picture i found almost exactly two years ago today when googling "cherry blossoms" for a VERY early version of the blog header. my, how the little panda has grown!
thank you so much for reading, friends.
shhhhhh! grandma's sleeeeeeping,
morgan

like cake.

how amazing are the vintage bakery case displays (and pricing boards) at buenos aires shop hermanos estebecorena?

via today's wish you were here feature at refinery 29.