how to be a successful fashion blogger

image via tumblr

• Wear so many rings that you are unable to type or hold a pen.
• Have lots of nice clothes and no discernable source of income.
• Always have clean hair. If your hair is not freshly clean, it may also be sexily-disheveled. Bonus points if you can rock the blogger bun.
• Find a hot photographer boyfriend.
• Live somewhere temperate. Weather cannot interfere with your sartorial instincts.
• Be pretty.
• Be thin. Alternatively, be curvy. Spend a lot of time talking about the fact that you are curvy.
• Find other successful fashion blogger friends. Say you met them on the internet. Say they are your style soulmate.
• Wear some kind of unconventional hat.
• Convince the sexy professional photographer boyfriend to propose so that you can plan your wedding on the internet.
• Learn to sew.
• Drink lots of tea.
• Spend a lot of time keeping your house clean and doing DIY projects. You don't have a job anyway, remember?
• Cry when that Alexander McQueen exhibit opens. Say it was life-changing.
• Love animals.
• Go to brunch.
• Wind up in a magazine for reasons no one understands.
• Go to glamorous parties with important people that you went to high school with.
• Have beautiful friends.
• Master the art of being nice on the internet.
• Learn how to smile while looking down with one hand on your hip.
• Discuss the moral ambiguity of your favorite leather jacket.
• Lust after something.
• Possess a mysterious magnetism and charm so strong that it is evident even on the internet.
• Develop a cult of personality

dorm decorating

Polyvore.com

I've spent the better part of today trying to figure out my dorm room next year. I'm living in the International House for my sophomore year, and it's time to step up the decorating. This is not Keeney. This is not 600 clueless freshman. This is Clara, living in a house with a boatload of sophisticated internationals. Clara is a little intimidated, but never fear! She has shopped her way out if it! For those of you in college (or boarding school, or whatever), here's what I've decided is necessary.

Bedding that I actually like
Last year I bought some bedding from Bed, Bath, and Beyond's college section. It was hot pink and really fun for about fifteen minutes, after which point I felt like an eighth grader. This year, I'm going for a ruffled duvet cover from Urban in a neutral color. That's because most of the color in my room is coming from...

A Rug!
This was my mom's idea, because last year she was convinced my room was depressing because it lacked a rug. Or, a rug that she liked. Whatever. I thought my old rug was fine (except that it was never vacuumed), but if my mom wants to buy me a big beautiful rug, I'm not going to stop her. This one was on sale on Gilt and we snapped it up like the last french fry.

A Sun-Lamp
Being of scandinavian origin, my dad's side of the family is mildly troubled by Seasonal Affective Disorder. I go to school in dark and frozen New England, so my parents decided I should take one of these lamps with me. It was one of the best ideas they've ever had. This lamp lights up the room like an airport or something. Also, the little lights that come with the room suck a lot.

Christmas Lights
Because I'm a cliche.

Postcards
I've been collecting gaudy tasteless postcards for the last year or so, and I'd been meaning to put them in a frame, but now I've got too many. The new idea is to buy some twine or something, and pin them to the string. We'll just see how that works out.

leather and silk

These are things that one can find in Florence for less than they would usually cost. Of course, I took full advantage of this phenomenon.

Those shoes? Handmade. Forty euro. The tie? Also handmade, and silk, and makes a great belt, thank you. Also, note the Duomo behind me in that last picture. 

Is it rude to brag? 

I don't really care. I abandon your social conventions in favor of my new shoes.

OUTFIT

dress - brandy melville

shoes  - handmade in florence

tie - bought at the san lorenzo market

sunglasses - urban outfitters

purse - h&m

brandy melville

I have a new favorite store.
Imagine a shop full of floral things and soft fabrics and crop tops and sheer button down shirts and pretty dresses with zippers and lots of black and white and beige and pink everything you could ever love.
In one shop.

It's made all the cooler because it's an italian brand called Brandy Melville. I had to talk myself out of buying all kinds of things today when we stumbled upon their location in Bologna, but I also snagged a tank top for 5 euros on sale (in addition to some other things that I'm sure I'll show you later).

Anyway, check this shit out.

new shirt with which I am obsessed

inspired

I love other bloggers. Other bloggers seem to have these beautifully charmed lives.

fashion toast

jenny from the block

my style pill

natalie off duty

selective potential

sorelle in style

fair verona

It turns out, when we go on day trips, one needs to be dressed appropriately for a church. Long dresses and wide shoulders are necessary.
Therefore, this dress from H&M.

what is on my face

makeup bag by clarazzle on Polyvore.com

Lancome HYPNÔSE DRAMA Instant Full Body Volume Mascara, $25
Physicians Formula: Happy Booster™ Glow & Mood Boosting Powder, $14
Korres Lip Butter Plum, $12
Fresh Here Comes the Sun Face Palette, $45
Fresh Sugar Rosé Tinted Lip Treatment SPF 15 Sugar Rose Tinted Lip..., $23
Benefit Cosmetics Erase Paste Deep, $26
SEPHORA COLLECTION Matte Blotting Papers Natural, $8
Physicians Formula: Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Gel CreamLiner, $11
L'Occitane Ultra Rich Face Cream 1.7 oz, $40
Nars Cosmetics 30ml Orgasm illuminator, £21
ROUGE COCO SHINE - Lipstick - Chanel Makeup

I think this is more interesting than what's on my bag. You may notice I have an almost schizophrenic selection (forgive my misuse of the term. For the record, I know that's not in fact what schizophrenia entails. I'm a potential-psych-major over here) of nice products and drugstore brands.
Honestly, that's just the way I operate. I tend to err on the side of cheap things when I can, and things like eyeliner are pretty much always the same.

That said, there's nothing even close to Orgasm Illuminator at CVS.

i have confidence in me!

I have been considering themes of confidence lately. I have constructed a cheerful playlist. It is below.

>

Ciao, belle.

this is what i wear these days

It is hard to fashion-blog when it is too hot to wear clothes.

ninetyfive | Fashiolista

patriotism, delayed

Apologies for my unannounced absence this week. I've been really busy doing the America thing and the Arcade Fire concert thing and the homework thing.
(Yeah, I just slipped that in there casually so that you'd think I was nonchalant. Also, I just ruined that effect with my awkward parenthetical. Why am I so in love with awkward parentheticals?)

Anyway, celebrating the fourth of july abroad is quite a production. I feel like I actually appreciate the states more when I'm elsewhere in the world.

When I was in America, Independence day was that time of year that we'd go to a picnic and eat watermelon and see some fireworks. In Italy or Switzerland or wherever else, you get an acute awareness of how American you really are. 

looking weird on purpose

This is a post about my floral sunglasses.

Once upon a time, I only wore things that allowed me to blend in.

Let me tell you about eighth grade briefly. I'm too old to be writing about eighth grade, but for some reason I feel like I have a lot to say about it, so no one is going to stop me. 

In eighth grade, we had a school uniform. We wore white and navy blue polo shirts and plaid green kilts and brown shoes. On free-dress days we also had a uniform. We wore abercrombie jeans and pastel colored polo shirts and Jack Rogers flip flops. 

At school dances the uniform was similar, trading out the abercrombie jeans for denim skirts. J. Crew was also acceptable. That was it.

One day, I decided to rebel. That's the kind of angsty kid I was, full of simultaneous contempt and reverence for the social codes (I studied them like an anthropologist). I carefully calibrated the degree of deviance from the norm that would still be acceptable. I wore a maroon polo.

And I got compliments.

For being edgy.

I wish I could say that from that day forward I broke the rules all the time. That would be a boldfaced lie.  But being looked at like I'm doing some thing different and awesome still makes me excited.

And with that lengthy backstory, I present to you, my floral sunglasses.

some old rocks and stuff

The thing about maxi dresses is that you can take a night train in them, because they're like light portable sleeping bags in which one might curl up and flash exactly no one. 

Then, later, you can go to Pompeii and have your friends tell you you look like a model. Which is laughable, considering you just took a night train.

Maxi dresses rock.

Also, Pompeii. It's very cool. That wasn't my first time exploring the ruins of Vesuvius (my high school latin class had an Italy-trip when I was a junior), but making saucy poses in front of the brothel doesn't get old.

The thing about Pompeii jokes though is that they still feel too soon.