Hiatus

After 2 weeks of not posting, I find myself feeling rather guilty! I've been working through my issues though, and over the past few days have been complimenting strangers. Without documentation. Just to do it.

Friday was a big SHOE day. Everywhere I looked, there were women with really fantastical shoes. I was nearly on overload. And either everyone was in a great mood (why not? It WAS Friday, after all), or people are just more receptive to compliments about their shoes than anything else. Everyone that I complimented seemed to appreciate the recognition of their style-sense.

I'd like to give at least partial credit to Andrea Victory of super-cute-pink-H&M-clutch fame (post: Technical Difficulties, June 8th). She found her way to my blog last week, and commented on my post about her. I guess it was JUST the compliment from a stranger that I needed to get my motivation back!

I will be out and about today, looking for people to compliment. I'm still considering a change of pace - doing it every day got strangely stressful - and I've yet to decide what it will be, but I'm working on that. Maybe 2-3 posts from me each week, maybe multiples per post... or maybe I'll compliment multiple people on days that I'm really into it, and archive them for the days when I just can't muster up a conversation....

Regardless, I want to keep this going. Any suggestions are welcome!

Slacking

Wow. I was so close to completing a full month of compliments, and then I just let this week slide. I had hoped to do one BIG post yesterday, highlighting the ways that Canadians express their national pride through their clothes (or lack thereof?), and get out and enjoy the city, but things just didn't work out that way.

I've been fairly hermit-like this week, and tonight am heading back home to help my mom with a wedding. I've realized through this process that sometimes I have to MAKE myself be aware of the people around me - that it doesn't always just come naturally to see something that I appreciate, and say something about it. And I've realized that I don't get out there and interact with the world as much as I'd thought. Especially when I'm trying to stay on budget and brown-bag my lunches!

Moving forward, I want to keep this project going. I think it's been a great exercise in self-awareness, and really has the ability to pick me up when I'm having a bad day. And I hope that I've been able to do that for the strangers that I've complimented as well. I don't know that I'll do it every day. I'm not sure that's really realistic for me right now, as much as I want to. So at the moment, my little project is undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts, and I'm not quite sure what kind of butterfly it will become.

Stay tuned....

Prayers for Landon

Just a quick thought - Landon Brogdon went into surgery this morning. He is the son of my friend and coworker, James. There haven't been any updates on the blog since 7:45 this morning, but I wanted to send my thoughts out to the family.

If you want to send your thoughts, or make a donation, please check out www.prayersforlandon.blogspot.com

I hope all is well, Brogdon family! Get well soon little Landon!

Better late than never, and other shameless plugs

As promised, here is the post that I SHOULD have provided for you on Friday! But, as I said above, better late than never.

I was at Happy Hourz Pub in Hamilton this Saturday night, for the first big gig of my dear friend Mark Cameron, aka Markis. You can check him out at www.reverbnation.com/#/Markis

I just know he's going to make it big, and if his new song "Love Life Support" isn't a big hit, I'll eat my shoe!


For Mark's big gig, he enlisted the help of his friend, Ryan, a very talented, baby-faced guitarist. Ryan has a sense of style that I really like (though I'm not sure it fits into Sheila's Saturday post about men's style!).

I had the opportunity to chat with him a few times on Saturday evening, and thought he'd be a good subject for my questions. I told him that I loved his hat - there's just something about a guy who can wear a "jonty cap" as I've heard them called, and pull it off. I told him about my blog and put the question to him about women complimenting men. His was an interesting response, as he didn't give me a broad yes or no. Ryan's answer was: it depends. He seems to think that you can usually tell if someone has an agenda behind what they're saying or not, even if you're at the bar, fresh off of the stage after playing guitar and singing (*swoon*).

I have a feeling that Ryan is an exception to the general rule when it comes to men. The majority of the guys that I've spoken to this week seem to feel strongly one way or the other, and didn't allow for any outside factors in their consideration of their answers to me. Artistic, talented AND thoughtful?! (sorry ladies, Ryan's got a girlfriend.

All in all, a great night, fantastic music, and excellent company. Everyone, please check out Markis, and show him your support! If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of his Single - "Keep on Watchin'" - please let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Hope you all had a great weekend, and I'll be back on the streets again tomorrow - we've almost survived an entire month together!

Randomness.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today's my Mother's birthday, and sadly I cannot be with her. I literally have the best Mom ever. And Father, but I'll save my bragging for Family Day. (Yeah, us Canadians have one of those.)

Usually I attempt to group together my inspiration and have one main focus. Today is not like the other weekends. I'm going to just throw together some photos that I like. Hope you like them too!

I'm not her biggest fan personally, but in terms of her style shes consistently awesome. Her stylist kills it every time. Here she's been styled by a magazine house stylist, (Elle maybe?). Her film career is...I mean her IMDB is larger than mine but still. When you think of Kate Bosworth you think Blue Crush or whatever that surfing movie was, and how awesome she looks all the time, and how skinny she is and probably looks even skinnier in real life. Or am I alone?

Source?

I forget where this was taken from. But I like it. It's beautiful.

source: Chicmuse

This is a photo from a shoot that took Mick Jagger as the inspiration, obviously. I love the androgynous looks. How sweet is the jewelry here? And the highlights in the hair. Perfect. And the Balmain (I assume) jacket? Stunning.

Source: Fashiongonerogue

Miss Karla from Karlascloset.com. I love her blog, love her style, and love that she wears things that you wouldn't necessarily think would fit with her body type. She's great. Check out her blog. Also, she just designed a bag for Coach. It's beautiful.

source: Karlascloset.com

I just liked this photo. I'm not huge into colour, but love a pop of it.

Source: Jackandjill.com

xo

Take Two

As sometimes happens with Friday night plans, last night's plans to go out with the girls fell through. I'm definitely going out tonight - BIG show for a friend of mine who just got signed to a record label (I'll likely cover this in my next post), so I'm going to defer Friday's post to a Sunday posting. I'm going to do my complimenting tonight, and take lots of pictures, then post tomorrow.

With that, I open the floor to Sheila and her weekend inspiration...

The Mens

Hello tout le monde

This weekends feature is focused on les mens. I love men's clothing. Love looking at men's shoes, hoodies, suits, all of it. Sometimes I love a men's style so much that i'll change it to suit my lady wardrobe. Hopefully now I do it more adequately than when I was in college. That was...horrific I'm sure. Rugby jerseys, baseball hat (daily) and mens jeans. We'll leave it at that. ahem.

So currently on the European runways is menswear! Sarah Burton has taken over the creative direction of Alexander McQueen, and has made a collection that is surprisingly neutral and subtle. Technique looks spot on, but to compare Lee McQueen's to that of Miss Burton's craftsmanship, its definitely different. I'm ok with different though. The real test will be when she pumps out Women for S/S '11. We're watching you Burton.

**(image courtesy from Huffington Post)

This is Prada. Pretty simple. Minimalist perfection.

Here we have Dolce and Gabbana. Beautiful. I'm aware that few North American men would sport this suit, but we're not all N. American, are we? Some of us are daring. If I was a dude I'd wear this suit as often as event appropriate.

Bottega Veneta. I like this line. Love the fit of the blazer, and the length of the cargo short. Like the models hair. Love that he's somewhat pulled together with his worked in blazer. Makes his beard not so 'bushly' (for all your Anchorman fans).

There are many, many photos and designers that weren't included here. But these were worthy. Menswear shows are continuing across the Fashion capitals so perhaps I'll do a second post with top 10 looks or something. We'll see.
Hope everyone's enjoying the G20! I'm pro-Summitry, or at least I was until last night when i tried to order food to my doorstep and got firmly rejected because roads were closed... DOWNTOWN! How is that possible? I had to actually make dinner. Geez, like I was prepared for that kind of task. ;)

Have a good weekend everyone!
xo

**(all images courtesy of thesartorialist.com unless otherwise stated)

A picture is worth a thousand words...

...which is why today's post (about yesterday) will be about a thousand words short! I managed, in my brilliance, to forget my camera at HOME!

And besides, I couldn't use the title "who's your daddy?" twice in the same week. The man I complimented yesterday was out for a walk with his adorable daughter in a stroller. I complimented him on his sunglasses, but he looked really great despite being dressed so simply. Great jeans, plain t-shirt, flippy floppies (I'm on a boat...). I don't know what it is about a guy in jeans a flip flops, but it does it for me!

When I put the question to him about what he thinks when a stranger (a FEMALE stranger) compliments him, he pointed directly to his wedding ring. He said that he wouldn't assume that the compliment was anything more than just that, because the ring is a bit of a flirtation deterrent!

We chatted a bit more, about how gorgeous his 19 month old daughter is, he smiled, thanked me and went on his way. What's the male equivalent of a Yummy Mummy?

Today's entry is likely going to be saved for tonight - I'm going out with the girls, and I want to extend my "manpliment" experiment to the bar scene to see if it's possible to compliment a guy on a Friday night without him trying to get into your pants...

What do you think? Does the social implication of the bar scene/meat market completely negate a woman's ability to compliment a guy without flirting?

Shake, rattle & roll!

Where were you this afternoon when Toronto shook? Personally, I was at work. It was like the scene in "Jurassic Park" when they realize that the T-Rex is coming because the water in the glass is shaking. I was on the phone with a friend (hi, Katie!), and first noticed that the water in my water bottle was shaking. THEN I felt my chair shaking, stood up, and the floor was shaking, the blinds on my windows were swinging back and forth...CRAZY! I never would have thought I'd experience an earthquake in Toronto! From what I've seen reported, what we felt was about a 4.0 on the Richter scale.

I went outside to investigate...there were HUNDREDS of people in the streets! This was my chance!

I walked up to a group of guys who work in my building, and said that they seemed like a stylish group of guys - could I ask them a question for my blog? They were hesitant, but obliged. I asked them if they thought it was possible for a woman to compliment them on their style just because she liked their style - and without flirting. They were pretty unanimous that if she keeps walking, then it's probably just a compliment...OR she's a really bad flirt! If she compliments him on his looks, she's probably flirting.

A female coworker of theirs came over, and I asked her if she would ever compliment a random guy if she liked his style. She hesitated, and ultimately said that she probably wouldn't! The guys agreed - it's a lot easier for guys to compliment women than vice versa.

So it's time to shake it up! More man-pliments to come!

Who's your daddy?

What a great weekend with the men in my life! Happy (belated) Father's Day to all of the men out there who look after the people in their lives. We love you!

With that, I'm going to dedicate this week to the man-folk!

I've realized that I have a harder time approaching and complimenting men. I think that it's for two main reasons: one, it seems to me that it's more difficult for men to really express themselves through clothing - t-shirts and shorts seem to be the uniform for this time of year. Two, if I approach a man, and compliment him on what he's wearing, I'm concerned that it will come across as flirting. I realize how silly that sounds, especially since nearly everyone that I've complimented so far has had a conversation with me about my blog and what it's all about.

So today, in an effort to psych myself up for a week of men, I spoke to Chris. Chris is one of those people who's job it is to stop complete strangers, and talk to them about adopting a child in a third world country. I let him give me his spiel (I wasn't a taker though - due to a bad experience that ended up with my identity being stolen!), and when he was done, I turned the tables on him.

My question for Chris was this: if a woman walking by you on the street compliments you on your shirt, what do you think? His immediate reaction? "She's flirting with me". Ah HA! We ran through a few scenarios. What if her compliment is that you're really good looking? "Flirting, definitely." What if she says she likes your shoes, and keeps walking? "Maybe she just likes my shoes, but she's probably hoping that I'll stop and talk to her".

WOW!

Interestingly enough, Chris called over a female coworker Maya to get her take on things. So we put the question to her: would you ever compliment a strange guy, walking down the street, JUST because you liked what he had on, and NOT to flirt with him? "Definitely, but he'd probably think I was flirting!"



And there you have it folks. I'm going to keep asking this question to men this week, and see what kind of reponses I get.

The conversation with Chris and Maya continued. Chris tells me that even when he ISN'T trying to sell something, he is constantly striking up conversations with strangers. Maya says that she always makes a point of complimenting people when she see something that she likes. Maybe there's something to be said for a job that really puts you out there?! I give these two a LOT of credit for doing what they do. Irritating though it may be, I think that much like my experiment, it's something that forces you to push past your comfort zone.

My Dad's Better Than Your Dad.

Happy Father's Day!

I realized yesterday that I never introduced myself to all the readers of I Like Your Style Toronto. Ive never been huge into throwing my personal life out there, nor sitting around discussing "me". But, with respect to Mandy, I'll venture into the unchartered;).

As I'm sure you've assumed, I'm in love with Fashion. Most of you think Mary-Kate Olsen looks like a homeless troll? I think shes a fashion icon and has influenced many, many trends in the last 5 years. Trends that you're probably wearing right now. I dont care who you are, or what you do, or how many monies a year you make, you can allllways keep your unasked for comments deep down inside. That having been said, I appreciate sarcasm with the best of them. I used to be a tomboy (I blame my brother who forced (wasn't really forced) me to learn how to survive in the elements, how to properly hold a snake, and how to build a treefort that would last) so I'm opposed to wearing pink, or anything girlie. I've been told as I get older I'll wear more and more patterns and skirts and all that. I remain skeptical.

That's enough about me. Now let's get to the good stuff. I'm going to Europe soon, so the creativitiy of the people across the wee ocean are a bit on my mind. Since we're Canadians, let's start with England.

Alexander McQueen

This past spring we recently lost a creative genius, Mr. Lee McQueen of Alexander McQueen. He was known as the 'bad boy' of fashion telling people off when he wanted, doing what he wanted. He apparently didn't use a pattern for his clothes. Insane, especially considering the stuff he was pumping out. His shows on their own were inspirational, not to mention his collections. Each season he'd have a different theme, perhaps the most well-known being a hollogram of his close friend Kate Moss in an ethereal image in one of his dresses (a company is currently being sued by his House for having their campaign be too similar to that well-known image). He was innovative in the Fashion world, always pushing to create something that was never done before. For example, his Armadillo shoes. I'll show them another time. If I get started on shoes, I may not get into England at all today.

These photos are from Spring 2010 collection. His Fall 2010 season was shown in memoriam after his death.

Miss Vivienne Westwood

For those of you who are familiar with her style, she's awesome eh!? I'm almost positive that her and Diane von Furstenburg rolled with Andy Warhol and his crew. They must have amazing stories. (I'd have loved to meet Edie Sedgwick.) Westwood is known for bringing punk into the Fashion industry, as evidenced with her most recent collection (Fall 2010).

Victoria Beckham

I know lots of people think she's an idiot, and pathetic, and crazy and too skinny, and blah blah blah. But her design foray has been utter success. Tons of celebrities attempt at being a serious deisigner, and most of the time there's big publicity for the first season and because they're NOT designers, their collections don't sell. Everyone thought Victoria Beckham's attempts would be similar. They were wrong. How cool is this: even though she personally has probably zero body fat her dresses are created with boning and ribbing so that ANY body size can wear them. Think Jennifer Lopez wearing the same dress as Vicky Beckham. Pretty rare. Even though her first collection was awfully close to that of Roland Mouret, she's done well for herself.

I will attempt at posting a feature both Saturday and Sunday, at the very least one of those days. I hope you all enjoy it. I'll read all your comments and suggestions so feel free to keep sending them.

Amanda, you're on!

xo

**(all images courtesy of style.com)

Weekend Update With Seth and....Sheila.

Its not really with Seth, but i love that SNL sketch. Really. Really? REALLY!? reeeeeeally.

Today's inspiration comes from models from the days of yore. Not that i don't love Gisele, and Doutzen, or Lara, or Chanel, or any of the other ones who frequent today's runways. But I feel like fashion ads have been taken over by movie actresses and singers and, disappointingly, reality 'stars'. Mostly because it has. (Anna Wintour admitted it. I'm not alone.) Not that i don't love actresses, because who doesn't. Some of them ARE models. But can we compare (my personal favourite) 90's model, Esther Canadas, to say...Jessica Alba???? (Esther dabbled in acting. Anyone remember her in the Thomas Crown Affair remake?)

Ummm look at that face. Angelina Jolie has nothing on her. And she had the best modeling partner for their famous DKNY ads that I had taped in a border around my wall in my childhood room (nerd). Mark Vanderloo. And they got married. Later divorced, but who cares. I loved them. Miley Cyrus and Jessica Biel and the useless Paris Hilton can sit down with their perfume and shoe and bag and hair extension businesses.

Next we have Jodie Kidd, who was busy busy modeling until she left because she couldn't deal with all the scrutiny that she was suffering from an eating disorder. Last i heard shes back now and has a skin care line to promote. Or make-up. Something perhaps not as interesting as her former modeling career. She was on every designers runway. Now she runs a horse farm I think. Pretty cool girl.

(No comment on the eating issues.)

Maybe after her hiatus?

Next we have our beloved Kate Moss. Miss Moss is still working just as much as she was 20 years ago. For a model who enjoys her ...nightlife, and has a daughter, and is creeping up on late 30's, and spends time touring with her token musician boyfriend, it's quite the accomplishment to have to fire a model from your TopShop line that you designed and use yourself as the spokesmodel because the younger and less...party-friendly model didnt sell as well.

The Calvin Klein ads need no introduction, or background info I presume.

Next...are the Taylor sisters. Tragically, Krissy died suddenly. Was so sad. I still remember those Seventeen covers (also were glued onto my wall). After that Niki worked for a bit, and then had an accident where she almost died, then got married (for the 2nd time) and had twins, and now she's trying to do some reality show, which...needless to say her modeling career was more remarkable.

There are so many other models, some of which are still working today. And for those of you who love the 80's, they deserve a whooooole separate feature. Cindy (love her so much), Helena, Elle, Naomi, Christy, Stephanie, etc etc etc. Phenomenal. (All of them are still highly sought after today. Goes to show you how great they are).
So when you see Madonna as the lead in her recent D&G, and DGM ads with her botox face and 17 year old co-model, just remember these aforementioned ladies. Today is good. I'm not bashing 2010. I'm as enamoured with today's crew as I was with Esther. But...can you imagine Naomi Campbell with a reality crew 15 years ago following her around? The camerapeople would be chewed up and spit out faster than she could throw a cell phone at them.

xo

**(All images courtesy of Google images)