Dolls, Etc.

GiltGroup emails have long been ignored in my gmail inbox.  With tight funds, the last thing I need is more excuses to explain a $100 purchase with, “But look, honey!  It was 70% off!  Think how much we saved!”    

However, when I saw a Madame Alexandre sale in GiltGroup, my usually thrifty brain went:"…they’re so pretty which is unusual since most dolls tend to be creepy...my niece-goddaughter loves dolls…if it’s not a purchase for me it’s like I’m saving even more money…I win!"  

Dorothy and Toto!

I love having nieces and a nephew.  

I knew I was going too far though when I saw a Funny Face doll and almost managed to convince myself that as the fatal combination of my favorite style icon and totally the best fashion movie ever made (that I’ve seen, anyway), I should own this.  Fortunately, I managed to talk myself out of it, perhaps influenced most by the crushing weight of my Very Grown-Up Job in An Office, since in most similar cases, my adulthood actually works out as a justification for a purchase like that: the preservation of my childish whimsy.  Here’s a picture so you understand how compelling the argument was:

Funny Face

Right?!  Audrey is lovely. There are certain movie icons who remain as the Unbeaten Ultimates in American Cinema.  Sofia Loren remains the reigning queen of impossibly voluptuous Roman goddesses in human form (although Sofia Vergara is representing our era pretty well).  Marilyn Monroe is the American girl-next-door, the hardy and sumptuous farm-girl who is knowing in some ways and vulnerably naive in others; though she may have been the beginning of the cliché held by some American men that the more beautiful a girl is, the more mentally unstable she is.  Audrey is, of course, the Hollywood Princess, so convincing not from exceptional acting skill, but because of the success of type-casting.  As the daughter of an actual Dutch baroness and originally a disciplined ballerina struggling to make money after immigrating from impoverished post-WWII Holland, she more stumbled into acting than pursued it, and had all the charm  and sweetness expected from a Cinderella story.    

P.S. I just perused the Madame Alexander website and: a) a lot of their dolls are actually very creepy looking, so hooray me for finding cute ones; b) what is the deal with a doll company that insists that plastic dolls are age 14+?; and c) they have a Henry VIII and Wives collection, supposedly part of their Showtime Collection, but still weird.  Sadly, Anne Boleyn's and Catherine Howard's heads do not pop off.

Heels: My Epic Struggle Against Pointy Inanimate Objects

My Piperlime gift card fashion victory has thus far afforded me hours of entertainment.  (Yes, I am crowing over my victory.  It's not often I win stuff, so just let me run a victory lap for this one, and I'll be done with it.)  I have ordered several thing from dear Piperlime, -- fyi: Piperlime's customer service really is top-notch, despite my criticisms of their product selection -- and I got the chance to play around with many brands.  My primary focus was finding heels I actually wanted to wear.  Being just shy of 5'9 and a teensy bit gangly does present a certain challenge in professional and sexy footwear.  You just cannot wear flats with everything, and I would like to branch out into things other than fancy Diesels and Doc Martens' menswear.  So I did order the Pour la Victoire black heels as pictured below:

They were pretty, if not really up to the quality I thought should be present in $200 black leather heels.  The crux  is, that heels may make me an Amazon, but they improve outfits and make you feel sexy, yes?  I may be the exception to the rule but I cannot feel sexy in shoes that make me feel as though I am mere seconds away from either snapping the heels off my twig-like support or collapsing into a very unflattering pile of fashion shame.  Literal stability is necessary in making me feel confident, and without actual stable foundations I feel more like this:

In case you can't tell, which is entirely possible since drawing is a skill that proves to be beyond me, this is a cartoon of a cat stranded on a box in a tempestuous sea, because, of course, cats are notorious for being sticklers for texture, dryness, and proper stability, though I'm not sure how effective my cartoon is if I feel the need to spell it out.  Whatever, I'm not trying to make a living as a cartoonist, so judge me kindly.  The point being that the little black patent shoes made me feel like this cat looks...so a big fat no to those.

Anyhoodle, I did manage to find these wonderful shoes by Seychelles:

I have worn these, in real life, three times so far because whatever genius designed these shoes realized that setting the heels closer in toward the center increases feeling of stability, so I can stalk around feeling like I am not about to buckle in on myself in a magnificent architectural failure, but instead feel as though I am as spindly and delicate as the Eiffel Tower.  So yeah, Seychelles.  

P.S. I need chocolate leggings to go with a shorter dress, and I have no idea where to get good ones.  Leggings horrify me a bit, so I need advice. Give it up and I will be eternally grateful.