worn.

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some of us run from it as if it were the reaper, truth so meticulously constructed just a gust would whip it away. some of us run into it headlong, constant whirlwind dislodging any roots we may take up. running from something else, perhaps. we think (as in all things) change is something best kept in balance: in check in accordance with tolerance and appetite. the kind sought out, the type that arrives a pleasantry, and those shocks those bolts the very least expected. that spin reality redefined. however it arrives, always be grateful for the new. impossibly tragic, a soul stuck on replay.

we didn’t actually request to go red, wasn’t actually going for the ginger snap. this will (apparently) fade gracefully into what we’d had in mind, so we’ve decided to roll with however this fire might unfold. change the only constant.
and so the anticipated return of our camera equipment came in perfect time with the return of our desire to snap the style at all (we can’t explain it, so we wont). so, after long last, here’s what we wore to our saturday brunch meeting.
sheer olive shirtdress: h&m
nude (faux) leather leggings: h&m
nude cutout booties: h&m
silver and copper cuff: h&m
(it’s almost embarrassing, really)
nude ribbon bodysuit: pho pa
silver mesh ring: what goes around comes around
grey leather bag: anna corinna
by the way we’re calling it worn from this point forward. what i wore is someone else’s. what we wore sounds weird. worn it is.

ever after

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the heartache arrives only to answer to the dream of it: the potential for what it could have been. what it was, before things changed. it’s a test (a tortuous one) to try and distinguish fact from fantasy. to introspect impartial as to what was real. him, or just the hope of him.

deep down something cautioned us along, whispered worries our way in the moments meant for contentment. sniffed out dangers lying in wait. found fault lines waiting to trip us up and take us down. but despite it, the curse of the woman. the belief in that pest prince charming: hypnotic, insistent, intoxicating.
every girl has a mr big of her own, we know this to be true. but perhaps it’s not for the magic of it, perhaps not the lovestory. perhaps it’s just all an excuse. to excuse our own excusal of their misgivings, promises with half a heart, impermanent evolution. we romanticize dramatics, drape fantasy round the dance, dream a tale to which only disney’d buy the rights. and before you know it, a life unrecognizable. a love story not our own.

but eventually (inevitably) you come up against a force just as fierce as your naiveté (its convictions, its beliefs, the things it’s sure are right). this wild universe of ours is ever-architected to conjure truths, to shine a light on what we need to see. what we’re pretending we don’t. it intervenes when we’re letting someone else hold reigns too tight. it helps cut us loose when we’re flapping to fly. it stops us from stopping ourselves.
so you choose your only choice: the unknown. you purge the past and the way it suffocates, rubbing skin all wrong. the way it pulls you places you’ve already conquered, sends your head, your self somewhere better left forgotten. better suited for demons. instead you choose the things you’ve yet to have, the places yet to see, the art yet to be inspired. you choose a life as yet designed, a love yet realized. you love, you learn, you let it go. it’s just life.

the final word.

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at first we never considered what it was, what it would be, what it could. we just felt the need, the words itching our fingertips. the loudest voice is always stretching to be heard. a quiet wisdom, anything but. we can’t remember what we wrote, that day or any other really. we just sit down log in and write.

this place is nothing but a metronome keeping time with our tide, as often a crest to breathe fire as it is a spot to weep. a place to celebrate. a place to curse our curses. a framework for randomness, it’s only point to parallel whim. to write is the act, to publish is an afterthought.
a peculiar spectacle, the guts of a life left on the table. watch it, consume, eat it up, let it breed judgment, let it breed contempt. what’s ours now yours. or so you think.

when did you get to decide what this was? what it looks like, how it sounds? conduct the pace of our prose, the taste and shape of our words as they stumble round your mouth. who says what we are, the very things we’re not enough of, except for us?

this is not a blog, it’s a blogette. the differential stands representative of our refusal to be anything but what we fucking are. our refusal to be what one (what you) might assume us to be. might assume a blog to be. we don’t cover events for the sake of an invitation. we don’t post praises in exchange for swag. we write what we write when we write it. and we’ll give you as much (or as little) as we well please.

socks and sandals, oh my

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the rain arrives, bringing along with her the gusts of old man winter’s chill. an insistent, assured cooling off from the blurred, sticky heat that seemed to lend this summer an air of imminent turmoil. slowed down by a soupy panic, masses as molasses. a very weird world. we’re grateful for the relief, the return to normalcy: routine, wardrobe, way of life settled into a song we like the sounds of. melody, mercury finally on-beat with the uni-verse.

and as we dive into a new season of style (canada’s only other type of temperature) we admit with an almost startling terror that we’ve already become witness to what we turns us off the very most: the boring black tight.
at once a cop-out and a curse, the boring black tight should hold no place in your array of underpinnings, let alone exist as the item of which you have the most. too many textures, patterns, complementary colours exist to excuse an everyday default of deep black. come on girls, live a little.
in fact brasandranties’ fall footwear update (along with the majority of fashion fiends and followers alike) involves instead simply the pairing of pump with sock. what would once incite a stylistic sneer (white socks, mary janes, we will never) now somehow seems both darling and daring. and very fresh.
as tougher counterpoints to sweet dresses, scrunched beneath shorts, or a peeking pop of colour beneath a cuffed trouser, the sockette is a way to migrate your favorite pieces from summer, giving them legs to live on. pun intended. the look extends seasons, adds texture and varieties figurative and literal, while opening up fields of complementary accent colours you’ve yet to explore (tip: what’s its opposite on the colour wheel). we’ve already begun to collect the makings of our own sockette menagerie, spanning the spectrum from an olive lace to a silky rust all the way to a fine knit navy you might swipe from your boyfriend. be daring, experiment, and work it out. and just say no to the bbt.
(image via sea of shoes)

the tides

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smell it. fall. a spice in the breeze, wind wrapping a chill only a chunky knit can cure. despite the sun still delivering us glimpses, blessed slivers left to saturate our fill, it seems the seasons have begun to turn. and in more ways than one. back to school patterns, forever ingrained: fashions, intentions, attitude seem to each get a lift come fall. it’s the new new year. it’s been a while.

we’ve moved east and now we peer out across an expanse of treetops, specked in roofs, in light. peaks of life. we see clouds roll their passage by, forming curiosities and sending lessons of perspective. often birds dance in troupes, using senses to fly. and, for days now, tens of bright butterflies parading across our landscape as they make their way warm, showing off for us shamelessly in their new fall wares. we’ll enjoy watching the world turn from this place.
such (uh…) dramatic souls as our own often need a reminder of just how small our reality, how inconsequential our place in the picture grandiose. while our worries might be real, most of them are manufactured, and we are truly one of the lucky ones. we tend to need the reminder. it helps that our home now lets us.
since you evidently don’t enjoy us making promises we don’t keep (what we wore is coming, jesus) all we can say is this. we feel fresh, we feel good and the blogette is fucking on. hold us to it. and may you be so-renewed: in momentum, in style, in energy. welcome back.
x brasandranties
(image stolen from weheartit)

a breath

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how splendid, moments to our self. barely yesterday it was quite the contrast, a winter hibernated with few more but our pup, our own bedeviled banter and a peppering of carnal callings. perhaps a meeting or two so we could pay the rent. twas at once a delight and a plague, in many ways just a reversion of needstate. an adaptation to animal.

some gorgeous, wretched truths sure surface in solitude. hours spent in thoughts both tortuous and inspired, in bouts of discovery. you can end up places good, others far from. a rather interesting experiment if you have the chance.

and now returning to march, the return of something set free, the best summer days we’ve witnessed in life; these hours sometimes feel like they’ve turned to ash. but it’s really only in these moments where the mind moves on, evolving what you think you know, how you’re sure you feel. it’s no coincidence a brain enjoys tracing the walls of a maze with grace, it’s function to figure and problem solve. they’re critical and we should each use in earnest. spend time wisely. means more books less blogs. no bachelor, but bach. create, and carry your creativity with you even to places it doesn’t belong. and listen to the voice (the one that doesn’t involve your mouth).

space-wasting

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we’ve come to note a rather disturbing wave making way across our city; an innuendo, influence tinting the vibe of many a boy about town. oh don’t get brasandranties wrong, this has always been a bit of a problem. but things seem to have dialed up while we were looking the other way.

hair gel and chains. tees muscled, silkscreened. chests puffing fists pumping. there’s guidos, guidos everywhere.

while brasandranties may be a proponent of a good old g-t-l for the soul, we just cannot fathom how the jersey shore circus is actually turning into trend. we’ve watched an episode or two, perplexed and horrified at just how very orange, but 5.5million people watch this shit weekly. for pleasure. and it’s starting to show.

a revolving episode of partying and pulling girls, all of it made dramatic by the frequency beer goggles find the busted en hot tub, the complexities of coordinating multiple hook-ups, testosterone and tequila infused beat-downs, and the blue-balled frustration of being left in the lurch (on camera, no less). and in having lapped up the lives of america’s most curious sweethearts, we’ve (er, you’ve) idolized them, normalized and glorified some pretty nasty ass habits. a sociocultural green light to guido-out. the situation will bank $5million in 2010. what a dire situation it is.