LLBean

It's no secret at all that I love LLBean. Passionately.

It's a love that has spanned decades, from the sleeping bag and stuffed bear ("Ellie" who I find no evidence of online, but she was really cute and wore a Fair Isle sweater) of my childhood, through my first snuggly, cozy winter shirt and snowboots bought my freshman year of college (back when I thought I'd never get used to the cold weather in Kirksville), to my present affection for a ruffled button-down shirt and my Town and Field boots. It's really a saying something, that in my 15+ years of patronage I've *never* worn out an LLBean item. Even those snow boots which hauled me to class and back twice a day for three years, and trucked three-year-olds around a playground, and got abused on hikes and camping trips at Thousand Hills, are still in rotation (currently my go-to dog walking shoes :-))

With all this in mind, you can only imagine how excited I was to discover LLBean's forthcoming new Signature line, to debut in less than two weeks (why yes, I have been counting the days)!

Details about the new line are scarce, but I'm already amazingly psyched.



Any photoshoot involving Sawyer can't be bad, right? :-P

Seriously, though - I adore the fit of that shirtdress - almost guaranteed to be universally flattering. I'd like to see if/how the sleeves unroll - 3/4 length? Full length? And is this the same fabric used in the men's chamois shirts (which is insanely soft)?

If the quality of the Signature products is at all comparable to that which the company has already established, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

I love how the dress is styled above, but I can also imagine that dress paired with these:


and this:


Cute, right? Fun and wearable and practical and classic (but also not *not* trendy, IYKWIM). Perfect for a rainy spring weekend :-)


I've only ever had one quibble with LLBean in the past, and that was with the way they styled clothing for catalogs and ads. Jeans were styled too short, tops too big, and skirts always (always!) too high on the waist. In short, everything was styled as if my grandma (no offense, Grammy) would be wearing it. For a company with such wonderful, timeless items it was really a shame to see them limit themselves to a stodgy demographic.

If you're not looking carefully and with an open mind, it can be really easy to overlook so many cute pieces. Like the shirt I linked above. Here's one of this year's colors, on the model:

SNORE. Holy hell, I'm bored just looking at it. Why not take that EXACT SAME SHIRT and EXACT SAME MODEL, and wear it open with a cute tank underneath and throw on a nice pair of straight leg jeans (only let's wear 'em a size smaller, ok?) and add some flats. And voila, there you have adorably mixed patterns and visual interest and texture and fit, all within the current product range. ( Here's how I styled the exact same shirt just the other day. Skirt is LLBean, too.)

That was fun - let's do another one.

Here's a cute skirt:


Pair it with this:

(I LOVE how coral and maroon-y magenta look together!)

with this underneath:


and these on your feet:

(hey, it's my game and there are no rules against using items I already own :-P)

Super cute, right? Much cuter than the blah, boring, neutral styling the site currently uses.

LLBean, I know you can do it. That's why for years I've been looking past the stiff models and boxy styling and have seen your cute clothes for what they really are. I hope that your new Signature line will remove a lot of that work for me. I hope it makes the brand even more popular than before. And I hope it brings your demographic below the AARP range. It's about time, don't you think?

<3
Kate

PS>Crap like this isn't helping any. Just sayin'. Still love ya. Madly. Really.

PPS>Apparently I'm not the only one with the unabashed Beanlove (nawwww, really? :-P). Check out: things that make me happy, maine maven, and Chic Geek, too!

Belated

I know this is belated, but check out Barking Dogs Shoes' Valentine's Day tribute post! Watch the slideshow - recognize anyone's Born Codders and handknitted socks? :-D

Thank you to Kirsten for putting together the fabulous and festive slideshow! :-)


And a happy - belated - Valentine's Day to all our readers. I hope your day was wonderful!

Unrequited Love

As I sit here gnawing at a chocolate reindeer leg (helloooo, leftover Christmas candy!) and mindlessly scanning posts in my RSS, I must confess that in another way I'm actually exercising every ounce of self-restraint that I'm able. You see, Jeff's wallet is on the coffee table in front of me, and I've got a Firefox tab open onto www.fluevog.com.

John Fluevog's shoes have been on the periphery of my awareness for some time now, but it wasn't until Audi's recent post about her shoe collection (including more than a few pairs of Fluevogs) that my internal switch flipped from "would be cool" to "WANT!" The direct problem with this is, of course, that I have already maxed out my shoe budget until 2015 (give or take a year). So until that point, I'll just share some of my favorite styles with you, and also let you know that I've never had an anonymous benefactor but I definitely wouldn't mind it. Size 7. Just in case you were wondering.


Let's start with the least attainable (for me, at least). Of course, they're boots: Chinoa:

I think they're great in either brown or black, but the reddish brown has some color contrast that really adds a lot of visual interest. And even though they don't look it, these would be VERY versatile - they'd look relatively "normal" under boot-cut jeans for a more conservative look, or tucked into skinnies with a voluminous top to be edgier. I can also imagine wearing them with a deconstructed cotton a-line skirt, plaid above-the-knee skirt, or (how awesome would this be?) tulip-shaped midcalf skirt. Like many Fluevogs, the styling really skirts the line between Victorian/steampunk and ultra-modern, so they'd work well in either setting. And the versatility makes them a perfect candidate for a one-pair-weekend trip, eh?

Xie Xie are another similarly versatile boot:

They come in black too, but I'm of the mindset that if I'm going to drop serious $$$ on some boots, I want to be able to wear them with *everything*. And in my twisted little mind, red says "everything" more than black does. Can't you imagine these beauties worn with a brown dress (maybe with crinoline peeking out underneath) and oodles of delicate copper or gold jewelry?

Libby Smith will be the last boot I talk about. I promise. Maybe.

These cuties, with the spat detail and dainty heel, are probably the most look-specific boots I've posted here. They're very evocative of that romantic Steampunk style, aren't they? Although, that's not to say you couldn't wear them with a jeanskirt and white lace knee-high socks, is it? :-D

Moving on to shoes, I've just gotta say that I LOVE Malibran:

Diana has a pair in the beautiful goldenrod pictured above, and I love how she mixes them up with so many other colors. The styling is great, too - the epitome of timeless, but with a shape, color, (and that contrast stitching!) to keep them from looking at all boring. Because of my pale skintone and red hair, most yellows make me look kinda, erm, "dead". But wearing yellow down at my feet would be a great way to incorporate the color without looking like a zombie, eh? I'd pair them with just about everything - pencil skirts to tweedy pants and everything in between.

Giulia may *look* like a boot, but it's not! No, it's a bootie. Completely different, I assure you:

This shade of brown is absolutely perfect, IMNSHO. My beloved LLBean flat boots are pretty close to this color, and it's wonderful. The reddish brown is like a chameleon - it can fade into the background and act as a neutral when paired with brighter colors, or wear with neutrals (black, white, khaki, olive) and suddenly they pop! Plus, the super-cute styling is great for 3 seasons of wear - won't look out of place in March or September :-)

I would have gone nuts for Illeana in the '90's, and I'm still going nuts for them now:

I'm sure the 90's wasn't the first place that this whole "blocky styling and lots of buckles" thing emerged, but it's the first place *I* remember seeing it. In an homage to my 8th-grade self, I'd wear these with a plaid skirt and non-matchy twinset, but I'd keep it modern by throwing a wide, cinched belt overtop and maybe wearing my favorite patterned tights. They'd also be supercute dressed down, with capris in the summertime.


I hope you enjoyed this little tour through my wishlist! If there's one good thing about all this window shopping (though keep in mind that "good" is in the eye of the beholder), it's that I've finally set upon a New Years resolution for 2010 - to buy a pair of Fluevogs before the year is out. Now I'm off to put Jeff's wallet under his sleeping head, to remove the temptation to resolve my resolution this instant :-D