I Have a Vested Interest in Cocktails

Ready for a night out at one of my favorite local bars.

Vest: H&M / Jeans: F21 / Tank: Macy’s

Also, you still have a few days to enter the giveaway - don't forget!!!!

We Could All Be Winners - GIVEAWAY!!!!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have been working on a blog giveaway (hopefully the first of many) and you can consider this the big reveal. For this giveaway, Sartorial Sidelines has partnered with CSN Stores (which has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from stylish handbags and shoes to cheap bedroom furniture and a wide array of decorative items) and one lucky reader will receive a one-time-use $55 gift certificate to use as they wish on any of CSN Stores’ 200+ websites. Here are a few of my favorite items:





And now for the rules:

You must be a follower (through Blogger, not just Bloglovin’) of Sartorial Sidelines

Leave a comment on this post and let me know if you are follower (do not comment on Twitter, Facebook, or CSN Stores’ Facebook page – for example)

Provide contact info if you do not have a blog address that I can reach you through

Only US and Canadian residents are eligible (sorry, CSN stores does not ship elsewhere but I will soon have another giveaway that will be open to all)

The contest will close at midnight next Saturday, October 2, 2010, and I will then contact the winner (who, for the record, will be drawn randomly from a hat or maybe a bowl by yours truly).

Enter now for your chance to win!

Get Witchy: Witch Hazel

Ruffle Me Up

Blouse: Ann Taylor

I picked up this purple tank with ruffle detail last year while I was living in DC and it quickly became a wardrobe staple – I love that I can dress it up with tailored pants and heels or dress it down with jeans. And it’s pure cotton so it’s really lightweight and fantastically comfortable in the hotter months.

Also, in totally unrelated news, I found out this weekend that an article I wrote called ‘Not Having God Before his Eyes’: Bestiality in Early Modern England" is being published!!!! I first got the idea for this project back in 2007 and decided to pursue it even though it has nothing at all to do with my dissertation or what I actually work on but because I wanted to see if, as a scholar, I was capable of independently researching something, developing a coherent argument, and writing it up in under 40 pages. I finished the article itself in 2009 and sent it to a couple of journals and after a year's worth of revisions and back and forth with one of them, my article has been accepted for publication. More excited I could not be!

Gaga's Dress Is Real Beef

As a vegan and a fan of Lady Gaga (both her fashion and her music), I'm a little (okay, a lot) conflicted by this.

Body Shop Lip Stain Review

Camping High

I’m still on a bit of a camping high from this past Labour Day long weekend and wanted to share a few photos from my time in New Hampshire. We got a bit of the tail end of Hurricane Earl on Friday night (think lots of rain and some wicked wind) but aside from that the weather was perfect, the campsite was lovely, and the hiking trails in the surrounding area (particularly the several hour long climb to the summit of Mount Monadanock) were fantastic.

My camping party

Our lovely tent site

A rousing game of crib around the fire

The view from the mountain

Hands off my chips! And possibly the most unflattering photo of me ever.

I spoke too soon. And yes, that is a Snuggie and I regret nothing.

We ventured into the nearest town one day for some shopping at The Thrifty Bear

Take a Bow at the Tower of London

Well, this is it: the last of my England photos. These are from my last days in London when I visited the Tower of London and went on one last shopping excursion and picked up this sheer blouse with a bow pattern from Next. This shirt combines two of my current favorite fashion trends (bows and sheer fabrics) so I was pretty thrilled to find it. And even though the Tower was just as overpriced and crowded as I remembered it, it’s still one of my all time favorite haunts in England. So it was a pretty good end to the trip. Now I actually have to start writing my dissertation. Yikes.











Today I decided to postpone actually doing work by fiddling around online for an obscene amount of time and I came across this little story and video from the Times about a roundtable discussion between several rising designers about the challenges and rewards of the upcoming Fashion Week. I found it interesting and wanted to share.

Bath's Fashion Museum

Bath actually has a lovely little fashion museum tucked away in it. Who knew?

Westminster Abbey and Bath

I’m drawing to the end of my England pics but here are a few of my trip to Westminster Abbey and Bath. I’ve been to Westminster before (lovely but super crowded – although this time around they were displaying the head of the funeral effigy of Anna of Denmark, which I actually discussed in my MA thesis after a long series of correspondence with archivists at Westminster so it was pretty neat to see the real thing) but Bath was a first and I really loved it there. Bath Abbey was extraordinarily beautiful and full of gorgeous memorial plaques built into the walls and the Roman Baths were really an incredible sight to see. Plus there was a local fashion museum (photos of that to come)! Oh, and at Westminster I got to spend some quality time with, purportedly, the oldest door in England. Exciting times!

Eyeing the London Eye

I’m almost at the end of my mass of London look photos – I swear! Near the end of my trip I made another trip to Zara and picked up this leopard print cardigan that I’d been eyeing for a while – then I took it for a spin around town (literally) on the London Eye (which I sort of hated). I also wore it to the Tate gallery and Lambeth Palace (the homes of the Archbishops of Canterbury – I’m secretly stalking Archbishop Cranmer even though he’s been dead for almost 500 years but he’s just such an awesome guy).














Finally, I’m off this afternoon for a weekend of camping in New Hampshire (camping is one of my all time favorite things in the world and I haven’t been in over two years so I am crazy excited) so I won’t be posting again until Monday but I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and I look forward to catching up with blogging on Monday when I arrive home in New Haven, happy but probably a little bit stinky from not showering for a few days and definitely with strange things happening to my hair.

Hever and Hatfield - My Tour of Historic Houses Continues

Here are few photos from two very historic houses that I visited during my last weeks in England. First up was Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn (as you are constantly reminded at every single point of interest in the house). I had a fabulous time here – the grounds and gardens were breathtaking and the house itself (which was meticulously restored to its sixteenth century grandeur in the early twentieth century by America’s wealthy Astor family) had an amazing collection of early modern furnishing, decorative items, etc. Next I visited Hatfield House, the childhood home of my other history hero, Elizabeth I. I’ve toured Hatfield before (it’s sort of like a pilgrimage for me) and it was almost exactly as I remembered it. The house itself is Jacobean (all that remains of the Tudor Old Palace are some stables and a great hall) but it is lavishly gorgeous and home to many famous portraits of Elizabeth I and her successor James I and his wife, Anna of Denmark (who, incidentally, was the subject of my MA dissertation). So it was a grand couple of days!



















In other news I recently read a little feature in Vanity Fair about a new swimwear company called Pret-a-Surf and I am totally crushing on their sweet designs and feminist design sensibility (although I don’t really understand why a company that designs for athletically built surfers doesn’t use those frames in its ad campaign).