All posts tagged: featured

“Desert bougie solitaire” outfit

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No one will read this because it’s Treefort in Boise but I’ll write it anyway. I stopped at a thrift store in Las Vegas and bought…everything. This dress says, “I sell crystals to heal your chakras from my Mercedes sprinter van. #vanlife”. My dad gave me this sweet cowboy hat right before I left. It has a Harley Davidson emblem in the middle. I was, indeed, born to be wild. pink & patterned Sage boho dress with fringe – $13, Savers in Las Vegas | Harley Davidson cowboy hat – $0, gift from dad | hot pink Columbia trail shoes – $80, REI outlet

“The Dunes are Alive” outfit

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The Kelso Dunes in the Mojave Desert sing. Like Julie Andrews with less Astroturf. When you break off a swath of sandscape, it vibrates the entire dune in this guttural hum. Earth throat clearings. Over 20 years ago, I camped on the side of this dune while on an “Into the Wild” style backpacking trip. More of an escape. Sand, everywhere. Coyotes, too. Another howl that cannot be captured by audio devices. The vague always lit vibe of Vegas haloing the mountains. Dune side that night, I dreamed of an orange beetle. It broke open to a radiant white goo. Now I’m writing a novel adaptation of this stint in the desert. (If not of the David Lynchian dream.) Strange and surreal, to come back here looking like you wear the sky with a backcountry sheepskin BDSM bodice. This place, already a sort of fiction in your mind. You, a sort of fiction, too. Sage sky dress – $13, Savers in Las Vegas, NV | The Comstock Load sheepskin vest – $60, from a friend’s …

“The End of an Era” outfit

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It’s the fin de siecle—and fin de this sick outfit. This will be the last time I ever wear this dress. It’s from the 1920s. Over 100 years old. It’s silk and velvet brocade with tassels and a fur-lined skirt. It’s the most exquisite dress I’ve ever owned. And I’ve owned a lot of exquisite dresses. But the seams rip every time I move. I kept painstakingly sewing it back together. The last time I wore it (before this last, last time photoshoot), I hand-sewed it for a half hour before going to Story Story Late-Night’s “A HOLiDAY NOT TO BE REMEMBERED.” It was a powerful show. The stories were riveting in the way that makes you put one hand on your heart and one hand in the air to feel the palpable electric buzz of the collective human experience of raw, real storytelling. I’m glad that this was the last event it will ever go to. I will not forget it. But sometimes, beautiful things cannot be resurrected. Because they are simply done here. …

“Watermelon Sugar High Seas” outfit

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When you buy a wicker watermelon clutch purse on the beaches of Isla Mujeres, make sure you pretend to eat it and spit out the seeds into the sand, so that when you later randomly pass a clutch of servers standing in front of a restaurant, they’ll mouth out your action and laugh. Making you a legend. A legend of the sandìa mime jokes. When I quit my job 8 months ago, I wanted to travel for one week out of every month. Finally, this year, I am nailing all my goals. Travel-wise and client-wise and money-wise. I’m exhausted, frankly. And I’m learning to adjust to reality. And realize the value of routine and a sense of place.   But I’m proud of myself. For going there. Over and over and over again. (Yes, this is my third trip to Mexico this year.) I’m proud of myself that I woke up at 5:30 am to catch the sunrise and silence of this abandoned shell beach house on the south tip of the island. Especially after …

“Reading Myself at the Japanese Reading Room (NYC)” outfit

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A read is an insult pointing out one’s flaws, according to Urban Dictionary, which I consult for my job, OK? (One time a corporation I worked for blocked out this site for obscenity and I had to take it to the top…of the internal chat gossip thread.) I love Cheep because, even after 11+ solid years, it makes me realize how mediocre I still am at so many things. It keeps me on my toes (literally, in strange modeling poses just Googled near the Guggenheim). It makes me look at and interact with the world strategically. Peculiarly. And pack my bag with intent. When in New York, I tend to listen to New Yorker fiction stories and wander around town. This particular Monday, my only mission was to get a Cheep shot, any cheap shot, in the Upper East Side. No sweat. Until you’re sweaty under a Central Park bridge like an outdated middle-aged fashion troll. For what…exactly? I tend to ask myself…at unusable photo 300. TBH, I don’t really know how to take a …

“The dress my grandma wore to my mom’s wedding” outfit

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I officiate weddings in the dress my grandma wore to my mom’s wedding. This last Friday, I cried more than the bride, seeing her float toward her groom (and me, peripherally) through rows of perfectly arched trees in an idyllic rural Idaho garden in the glow of the golden hour. I love that electric feeling of real love. Like that time I almost got struck by lightening in the Sawtooth peaks, you run your fingers through the air and feel the sparks. It makes magic of mortals. The love stories in my family are legends. Epics. My grandparents loved their way through jungles and concentration camps in the war-torn Philippines. My parents found their way back to love after a tragic 10 year split. Though it seems unlikely, so do the plots of all great Lifetime movies, I hope to someday have my own love story of legend (or psychological romantic thriller with shocking twists….oh, wait…*crosses off list*). Until and if I do, I’ll feel the vibes in this dress. vintage 1970s – no tag …

“The Eyes Have It” outfit

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In 1984, the Telescreen, peering into your room like a dull mirror inset in the wall, recorded every private act for the nosey overlords to look / listen in. “Never,” we claimed. Then came Alexa. And all our George Orwell / Jeff Bezos dreamscapes came true. “Watch me now,” said the Danger Twins, and the populace. In the end, we opted in. Apropos for Apocalypse Capitalism, it’s like we got the Splenda version of the dystopia. Fake, saccharine…tastes like the uncanny valley…and conveniently comes in tiny packages. OK, maybe I’m dark. But only dark in the sense of a Salvador Dali surrealist film obsessed with high contrast and the eyes. What we see and what we don’t see. What is visible and what is invisible. What we choose to look at. (Like Lou Reed.) Sweet dreams. no label (handmade?) 1960s electric blue starburst gown – $45, Antique World Mall. Cheep it looking upside down and sideways.

“The House of the Rising Sun” outfit

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This dressing gown would only be house-of-ill-repute hot in 1718, the year New Orleans was founded by French knaves, and reputable women were in scant supply. Meticulously unbutton with your eyes this Reformation Era chic boudoir cosplay in the French Quarter. Patterns for days. Swampy-heat languor for miles. In my fevered imagination, this dressing gown is the mirror image of the one the woman—taken in the bloom of her youth by consumption—who haunts this historic house wears. Her gray train shuffles against the hardwood. “Did I hear something?” one asks. Just the wind near the French doors. You imagine. Misslook dressing gown, $14. Antique World Mall Cheep!

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being Dawn Baer” outfit

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How people live without an alter ego I’ll never know. Lately, mine has been Dawn Baer. She wears vintage concert tees without bras. She wears wire-framed 70s dad glasses with thick lenses (so you can’t read her unspoken shade). She wears forest green wool berets hand-beaded with a tropical beach. She cadged her jacket during a stint in the Idaho Fish & Game. She inked her name on the label in all-caps: BAER DAWN. When I think it’s finally time for Dawn Baer to hang up her beret, a bitter gust comes in. What’s blowing in the wind this time? Better put on your trusty Fish & Game jacket (that I found at the Antique World Mall), Dawn Baer. Trigger warning: Bambi. I’ve now passed off a memory that involves the Idaho Fish & Game to Dawn Baer. See? It’s good to have an alter ego. Get some distance between you and you. There I was…I mean…there she was…a dorky doe-eyed information forest ranger in her mid-20s in Stanley, Idaho. A middle-aged man came in …

“To be or not to be in Death Valley” outfit

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My longstanding quest for Cheep has been to capture the look of a disinterested bohemian model in an Anthropologie catalog. She side eyes you in her cotton patchwork gown against a distressed backdrop—fingering strange, decayed objets d’art—like an end-of-times queen of leisure. At long last, a solid decade into thick of Cheep, I finally reached my goal in a ghost town in Death Valley called Panamit City. Here’s a step by step guide to achieving this rare look: STEP 1: Get stupid lost and stranded in the desert. Idiotically go to the entirely wrong side of the mountain to the rockiest road in Death Valley. Foolishly drive straight up it and viciously slash your tire to bits. Fail to locate a jack. Contemplate your slow, lonely demise for at least one night and one morning. STEP 2: Get jacked. Somehow get cell service for just the tense five minutes it takes to call your dad and get him to Google where Honda painstakingly hid the jack in 2001. STEP 3: Stress shop in Pahrump, NV. …