I Like Your Hat

I am currently sitting on a bench on the academic quad of my campus killing some time before I have to head to my next 30 minute syllabus class. I've actually been back at Colgate for some time now because I decided to be a leader for a pre-orientation group for the freshman this year. It was pretty fun and I got to know some new people and some new freshmen (I actually bought my shelving off a freshman who thought they could fit that in Curtis HA). But despite having been here for a week, I'm still in denial that school is starting and that I won't see my friends from back home until Christmas.

My last night in San Francisco, I had some friends over for dinner and a sleepover. I'll blame that dinner for my current lapse in my diet because we just made a giant pot of pasta and eggplant. It was yummy and simple but definitely went against my no carb diet. OH WELL. After some normal chatting and eating, we went on an adventure to the drugstore to buy Ice Cream which we then casually destroyed.

This is the unnecessary outfit that I wore to this fun event. I had to wear it because I had stolen that hat from one of my friends and had yet to take advantage of it's amazingness. I've been eyeing a hat like this for about a year now, but have never actually bought one. 

Although I'm obsessed with that and they make any outfit just 50x more glamourous, it just doesn't make sense to wear at school. I'd have to take it off in class (imagine sitting behind a chick wearing that), I'd take it off in my apartment or visiting anyone else, so basically I'd end up just holding this hat all day getting annoyed. And that's the reason I have not and probably will not buy that hat until I graduate and live in a city again. (how unnecessary was that rant). But now I'm in a hat state of mind, I'm going to include some hat pictures that I want but can never have as a form of torture for myself. 

the perfect wall decoration (I found this on pinterest...obviously)

Gaultier at the de Young

 

This past week, I went to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the de Young. Now this exhibit as been at the de Young all summer and I've been looking longingly at the flags hung all around the city, telling myself that I have to go. Of course, I didn't actually get my butt over there until my last week of summer and the last week of the exhibit. Classic. Now I must admit, I'm not the biggest museum person. It's one of those things that I really want to like. I want to be cultured and snobby like that. Unfortunately, I don't have the attention span to look at every piece/object/painting/whatever with the deep intensity and thought it deserves.
Instead, I stroll along looking at what I can recognize or find interesting. Sometimes I check my phone. And although I did do some of these same things when I went to the de Young the other day, I did it much less! Which proves that I enjoyed my experience there!
Honestly, I'm always far more interested by an exhibit when it's about fashion. Maybe it's the inner shopoholic in me that comes out and treats the museum more like a window shopping expedition rather than a museum stroll. Although most of the garments were not something I would wear (as my niece who saw it a couple days after me said), they were still fascinating to see, envisioning them on models strolling down the runway.
But the main element that kept my attention was just the brilliance of Gaultier. Dubbed the "enfant terrible" or "terrible child" of fashion, Gaultier founded his own couture house in 1997 when most people believe couture was dead. Many people actually give Gaultier the credit for the continued strength of the couture artform, with his challenging and innovative collections. Through both his couture and pret à porter collections, Gaultier takes inspiration from the changing world around him and reflects them in his own dress codes (From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk was the title of this exhibition--fitting right?). He bravely and famously tackles sexual issues such as conventional gender roles, transgender, androgynous, HIV all through his clothing. Many of these gender challenging garments were made famous by Madonna. He also looks do the diverse population of his native Paris to create multicultural looks in his collections.
So that's enough chitchat, below are some pictures I took at the exhibit. I hope you enjoy them. Miraculously they let me take pictures without flash! When I went to a similar exhibit at the New York MOMA, they yelled at me and made me delete the picture. How Rude, right?!

See that small picture of Madonna in the background, and that's a version of her classic cone-shaped bra!

Madonna wore this in the opening of her last tour

 

That's not cheetah skin, those are beads! Took over a 1000 hours to make