A Word With Your Wardrobe: The trouble with buying boots

Alongside my personal battle with the comforts of sweatpants and flip-flops, one of my top nemeses at Rice and around Houston is the weather. This is especially troublesome when it comes to seasons that really should exist, like winter. I once overhead someone describe Houston's seasons as "January and the rest of the year," which is pretty much spot on. The reason I'm bringing weather into the discussion is because over the years it has affected my acquisition of a certain closet staple: boots. For the longest time I owned none, not even rain boots - though that, in retrospect, may have been a poor life choice.

A Word With Your Wardrobe: Chloe Dao's Fall 2009 Fashion Show

You may not know her, but Chloe Dao is kind of a big deal around here. Ever since winning the second season of "Project Runway," the petite designer has singlehandedly boosted Houston's fashion credibility and steered its image away from oil rigs and cowboy hats. Seeing as Houston is not exactly esteemed for its design prowess, it's only natural that a local such as myself would fall so easily into fandom.My first Chloe Dao fashion show was a few years ago, fresh off the post-"Project" buzz when she was still using the Lot 8 label for her clothes. The venue was free of charge, at her very own store, crowded with friends and fans. The lineup was small, with 20 or so pieces displayed. Though some of those featured her signature back cutouts and color blocking, the collection overall was mediocre. It was pretty and commercial, but nothing too covetable, and it lacked a connective theme.

A Word With Your Wardrobe: Spending less to look, feel better

Being a self-proclaimed fashion enthusiast comes with a number of responsibilities. First, there's the matter of staying current with the industry trends, or risking quickly losing both knowledge and credibility. Second, there's the obligation to always look presentable; otherwise I lack contextual evidence for caring so much. Third, there is the matter of dealing with frequent questions as to my wardrobe's origins. This last point, I would argue, is the most difficult, because it seems as if fashion-conscious people achieve their looks with overpriced garments and thus makes me feel as if I should indulge listeners in tales of glorious escapades in expensive-clothing lands that they dare not trespass.

A Word With Your Wardrobe: Backstage at the Simon Malls fashion show

If you've ever wondered what it's like backstage at a fashion show, you're about to get a taste. Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of working behind the scenes as an intern at the Simon Fashion Now fall runway show, which kicked off the night on a majestic pop-up runway over the Galleria's ice rink and was held exclusively for the press and VIPs. In a nutshell, the event is a three-day animated window display of the clothing that will soon be available in stores, focusing on ready-to-wear luxury and mid-range sportswear and whetting appetites for their eventual retail.

A Word With Your Wardrobe: Rice's Fashion Frustrations

I know I'm not the first to say it, but welcome back! I trust that your summers were well spent, lounging about in your best hobo shreds, splashing around half-naked while soaking up some sun or like most of us, pasty as usual in our lab coats. Many of you will, without a doubt and for whatever reasons, continue to sport such uniforms well into the school year. Most of you will do so purely because it's college and you believe no one will care.

A Word With Your Wardrobe: Dressing for Rejection

Dear seniors (or, should I say, graduates): This one's written all for you. Here at Rice, you've been given a lot of yes's: Clubs, grants, letters of recommendation, parking fee waivers, friends and even boys. Granted, there may have been some minor obstacles along the way, but in the end, those sweet words of approval were always within reach.

A Word With Your Wardrobe: Chatting with fashion stylist Andrew Drayton

Houston is not exactly known for being fashionably forward. Though not the most remarkable of observations - since I'm not constantly surrounded by people who clomp around in shoes as big as their face and talk in designer names - I tend to take it for granted. But just when I'm brooding about being in a place that couldn't care less, I run into people who couldn't care more.Stylist Andrew Drayton is one of those people.

A Word with your Wardrobe: Thinking Pink

A Word with your Wardrobe: Thinking Pink

I've been doing some spring break thinking, not on spring fashion, but fall. Fall 2009 to be exact. Backwards, sure - but so is the fashion world.As I discussed two weeks ago, New York fashion week for next season was pretty bleak overall, and the European circuit wasn't looking too good, either. After flipping through London's show and starting on Paris's offerings, I stopped and asked myself, "Deanne, what are you doing? It's March. It's going to be six months-plus until anyone in Texas even notices it's autumn. Stop brooding over a hypothetically black future and step into spring. Let's talk about all the stuff that a floral season promises: sugar, spice, everything nice that starts with an 'S' and ends in femininity."

A Word with your Wardrobe: Galleria Fashion Show and Tell

While the Big Five - New York, London, Paris, Milan and Tokyo - are showing collections for Fall 2009, the fourth-largest city in the U.S. is celebrating the here and now with some Spring '09 fun. Last week at the Galleria, Simon Fashion Now presented Houston with its very own three-day fashion presentation, complete with runways as well as bonus style stops to discuss beauty. The first evening, however, was a high fashion event that was invitation-only. Luckily, the Thresher happened to get me and Joel Kahn, a staff photographer, on the guest list.We arrived to see that there was already a socializing buzz about and that almost every fashionable woman in sight was in a pair of pumps, while the men were sharply clad in suit and tie. Shortly afterwards, an omnipresent voice ushered everyone to their seats, and the show began right at 8 p.m., with Saks Fifth Avenue, featuring Christian Louboutin shoes, as the opening act.

A Word with your Wardrobe: The importance of building basics your way

Fall 2009 is not looking too good.I was halfway through poring over all of the runway shows debuting in New York and instead of immense anticipation, I felt... bored. Bored because every designer seemed to be focusing on the bare minimum, the solid colors and the black-on-blacks; even those who have a reputation for something a little more "out-there" lacked luster this time.

A Word with your Wardrobe: Pre-Rondelet notes on the James Bond look

What happened to those days when men polished to the tips of their shoes and dressed to the nines simply to go out for brunch? Where is the man who makes ladies do double takes with raised eyebrows, intrigued not by his chiseled arms or exposed physique but by the thought of what his tie might look like loosened and discarded? What became of the men who left something to the imagination, the gentlemen on the forefront, those knights in their crisp suits? I sure don't know, but one thing is certain: They just don't make men like they used to.Granted, Rice males are 20-something-year-old students who have things to do, grades to save and little time to take care of their daily appearances, but what can be said about a man who seems to be under an even greater level of pressure, with stresses unrivaled? How does one explain why James Bond looks so damn good all the time?

Fall Leftovers and Springing Forward

One of the reasons keeping up with fashion trends is so difficult is that the fashion fiscal year runs opposite to that of the real world's seasons. When autumn begins to fall, runways are showing spring things; when spring barely arrives, fall is already stepping out. Fortunately, designers are as clever as they are creative, and they often carry over some of the more notable fall trends into their spring collections. This not only helps ease their customers into the next season, but it also filters out the trendy from the tried and true. Here's the skinny on some concepts that have potential style staying power.Trends from 2008 to still "Fall" for:

Yes We Can: Fashion inside the hedges isn't a hopeless case

Starting with this week, the Thresher is going to have its very own fashion column. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Fashion? What? At Rice? Um, no." And I'm not going to lie; when I first came to Rice, I thought the exact same way.Every day I watched droves of people walk to class in their hoodies and jeans, pajamas and sweats, without a care for what they were wearing. As someone who chooses to spend 20 minutes of every morning just staring at her wardrobe, who dares to brave the academic quad in heels, I found it disheartening to discover that my peers did not share the passion that I had for getting dressed.