Outfits with Their Own Romantic Comedy In Time for Valentine's Day

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, which means that it is time to rewatch all of the classic romantic comedies. You’ll wrap yourself in a blanket, pour some Kahlua into some hot chocolate, and get ready to cry over that moment in You’ve Got Mail when she says, “I hoped it was you” and all of the expositional rivalry is forgotten. Or something like that.

If you’ve watched enough rom coms, which I certainly have, you’ll find that there are iconic clichés and graceless tropes that are common throughout the genre. Rom coms aren’t really known for being original, and in some of the lower budget Hallmark ones, it’ll be like a Frankenstein-ing of the classic platitudes stolen from the corpses of better scripts. I’m a sucker for a good archetype, and it’s interesting how different movies will beat one to death in an entirely new way.

I like putting together outfits with a story. If you choose well enough, it can feel like you’re stepping into another story or being another character for the day. All of these outfits below come with their own rom com subplot.

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The Woman Who Is Clearly About to Get a Makeover

Inspired by Josie from NBK and Toula from MBFGW

You’ll know her as soon as she appears on screen. She’s stunning, but she’s been hidden under a thick layer of loose fitting clothes and geeky glasses. In order to find love/success/happiness she must endure a metamorphosis. We can’t see her personality with those glasses in the way! In about half an hour, she’ll remove her spectacles, discover the joys of well-fitting jeans, and flawlessly apply winged eyeliner even though it’s been made clear that she has never indulged in makeup before. Soon she will be beautiful enough to catch the eyes of our hero! But for now, she’s carrying books and acting as if she has never spoken to a human before. She’s wearing flat shoes. Flat shoes. But don’t worry, she’s amazingly beautiful as soon as she takes off the glasses. She won’t be able to see street signs or read the allergy warnings on restaurant menus anymore, but at least she’s beautiful now!

As seen in: Gracie in Miss Congeniality, Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries, Allison in The Breakfast Club, Toula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Sandy in Grease, Andy in The Devil Wears Prada, Cady in Mean Girls, Tai in Clueless, Josie in Never Been Kissed, almost everyone in The House Bunny (I’ve never worked up the stomach to finish this whole movie, so correct me if I’m wrong and the Zeta Alpha Zeta girls discover that the real beauty was inside them all along after getting their extreme makeover), and possibly the ancestor of this trope… Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

Get the look: Wear glasses, flat shoes, ill-fitting clothing, and don’t brush your hair. Make sure to be obviously uncomfortable in your own skin because we all know that women can’t be confident and self-assured unless they look bomb.

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The Brisk and Calloused Journalist Who Must Be Taught to Love

Wore this outfit IRL and the mean journalist vibes inspired me to write this post.

She’s a career woman. She’s smart. She’s a pragmatic cynic. And worst of all, she doesn’t prioritize romance! She’s obsessed with her job and is no fun at all. Her male counterpart will be fixated on teaching her how to have fun, be spontaneous, let loose, but for now, she wears mostly black and is kind of mean. She just needs the right man to teach her about balance! Once she finds love, she’ll abandon her high paying job that gives her financial freedom and a sense of fulfillment. Ah, romance!

As seen in: Sarah in Hitch, Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda in Sex and The City, Amy in Trainwreck, Margaret in The Proposal. See Kevin in 27 Dresses for the Male Version.

Get the look: All black. Stilettos or very loud boots so you will always be heard when you walk. Carry a newspaper because in this story, the decline of print media never occurred.

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The Naïve and Pure Teen Who Is Also Very Sexy

My recreation of Bianca's first scene in 10 Things.

This look is lifted almost entirely from Bianca’s style in 10 Things I Hate About You. This character is gentle, sweet, kind. She wants to be popular and she usually is. Everyone is in love with her. She might be smart, clever, mean, or stupid, but we don’t care about that. All we care about is that she is pretty and generally wearing pastels. Boys she doesn’t even know will defend her purity! She is the embodiment of male fantasy. She is very, very sexy and probably DTF but she is also pure and precious so that when the male protagonist finally gets the girl, he is the first to drive his flag into the sand. As Edward Dahlberg once said, “what men most desire is a virgin who is a whore.” This character perfectly encapsulates that idea. She’s just an idealized figment of male desire. She’s not really imagined as a whole person but look at how cute she is!

As seen in: Bianca in 10 Things I Hate About You

Get the look: Wear a floral print sundress. The exposed shoulder and collar bone will just drive him crazy, but the soft pastel palette will prove that you’re still pure! A short necklace will draw eyes to your barely revealed décolletage. Maybe it has a daisy on it. Flowers represent purity. And also vaginas.

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The Angry Feminist Who Is Still Very Sexy

Not only is this outfit 100% Kat Stratford, I also copied the pose and the outfit almost exactly from the movie poster.

This look is the counterpart to our naïve and pure teen. To perfectly capture the dichotomy of the two types of women in the world, choose a friend to dress up as the very sexy teen!

This character is an example of how feminists are bad! They hate men and they are sometimes very sexy to the male characters because they know they can never have her since she hates men! She reads books and quotes Sylvia Plath. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup because she subscribes to the surface level feminism that assumes anyone who wears makeup is objectifying themselves. Luckily, she is stunning without it. She’s mean to the men around her in a way that makes them mad and also turns them on. Her sassy comments have too many big words. How does she say them so fast? Does she practice? This look embodies my whole high school vibe and adds a splash of sexiness. Is she an oversimplification of feminist theory? Maybe. But is she pretty damn sexy? Hell yes.

As seen in: Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You.

Get the look: Wear loose pants and ugly sandals. Put your hair up and don’t wear accessories. Beauty is for the asinine, you’re too smart to bother with your appearance. Don’t wear a bra. Angry feminists always burn their bras and also it will give the male viewers a tantalizing look at some nipple bumpage. Note that this step is entirely unattainable for those larger than a B-cup and may need a bralette to serve as a substitution for going braless.

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The Best Friend Who is a Mess

Lifted directly from Casey's morning after wedding outfit in 27 Dresses

She’s a disaster. She doesn’t really care about her job and she is often drunk. She’s kind of mean and she’s gasp a casual dater! She gives terrible advice and her very existence makes our protagonist look better as a person. She’s sloppy, sexually avaricious, perhaps foul mouthed and 100% comfortable in her own skin. She has no qualms about showing up to work wearing half of her bridesmaid outfit and a button down shirt she stole from her latest conquest. She is a foil to our protagonist, usually situated in a way to make the leading lady’s quest for unending love look more noble. She can’t really get her life together and she doesn’t really care. She provides the sassy comments, the horrible suggestions, the comic relief, and most importantly, the wine.

As seen in: Judy Greer as Casey in 27 Dresses, Judy Greer as Lucy in 13 Going on 30, Judy Greer as Penny in The Wedding Planner, Judy Greer being criminally underused in every movie she’s ever been in. Give me more Judy Greer!

Get the look: Make sure your look uses only slight tweaks to make your night out/wedding reception/engagement party look daytime appropriate. Smudge and blend your slept-in smokey eye to look less like a raccoon, comb your hair with your fingers, and use your bridesmaid sash as a stylish belt for the shirt you stole from your groomsman. Bring that half empty bottle of wine because hey, the party doesn’t stop!

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We are coming into a new age of rom coms. Ladies are heading the writer’s rooms, LGBTQ+ characters are finally appearing as more than a stereotype, and the romantic interest doesn’t always have to be a mediocre looking white man who needs to learn how to iron. With this age of new, diverse directors, writers, and producers hopefully we will come to an age where our tales of romance don’t lean so heavily on stereotypes and oversimplifications. Until then, I’m going to give all of my outfits a secret rom com subplot because I love a happy ending.

My Roaring Twenties Inspired Bullet Journal Set Up

Here's how I set up my new journal for 2020.

In prepping for the new year and new decade, I really wanted to set up my bullet journal in a way I'd love all year round. I coincidentally have had to moved into a new journal in the perfect timing to correspond to the new year. I know we are a few days into the new year. This is my set up for 2020.

The Internet has been a tizzy about coming into a new decade and particularly over entering the '20s again. Perhaps the 2010s were such a dumpster fire that we all are hoping for an entirely new start, perhaps we are looking for any reason to descend into hedonism, embracing opulence and extravagance in a manner of which Jay Gatsby could only fantasize... Either way, bullet journalers have really been loving the excuse to rediscover the Art Deco style that helped define the decade, and I am here for it.

I was particularly inspired by Amanda Rach Lee's January set up and especially the theme by Plant Based Bride in a drool-worthy gold. I don't really care if it makes me basic, I'm leaning into this trend as hard as I can. It pairs my love of Art History with my obsession with order and symmetry, and it doesn't really require you to be that talented at art, so long as you are patient with a ruler.

I chose a quote page to sit opposite the cover, and the quotes I used are from Panic! at the Disco's "Roaring 20s." It was one of my favorite songs off of Pray for the Wicked, and I remember scream singing in it my car when I first got the CD (I realize no one used CDs anymore, but my car is from 2002 and that is my only option). I love how this song embodies the spirit of change that I feel is sweeping over me. I have barely scratched the surface of my twenties, and I am still searching for myself. I enjoy the idea of the past being so far behind that it is smashed on the pavement below you.

Since the pages of my new journal (the Leuchtturm1917) are incredibly thin, I cut out paper blocks from an empty journal and colored them in with an Expo marker. I wrote the quotes over them in a white Gelly Roll pen (the 08 in Sakura) and then glued each whole block onto the page once everything was finished.

Making the grid pattern behind it was much more difficult for me, and it took me the greater part of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to complete (I have decided it's probably not worth my time to attempt to dissect all of the differing problematic elements in that film and also that I would surely let a young Harrison Ford ruin my life).

I cut out a paper square in the size I wanted in order to trace out the preliminary pattern. Then I straightened everything out with a ruler. The important thing is to not get too overzealous with your line drawing as you want that impression of space between the tiles. I drew all the additional details in with a Crayola marker.

I decided to go for a more simple layout on the title/name page given the intricacy and boldness of the opposite page. The block arch is a pretty common motif in Art Deco. If you sketch it with a pencil first, it is pretty easy to replicate by tracing a semi-circle for the top and bottom edges. The raining lines below my name were more of me filling space rather than a common theme, but I did use a common divider that I found on Pinterest for the center panel. My ruler slipped and I messed up one of the center lines. I mostly patched it up by coloring over it with my white gel pen and re-drawing the straight line over that. It was... mostly effective.

The Leuchtturm1917 has pages labeled at the front for the future log, which I personally found really annoying. I'm not the biggest fan of having my journal choices dictated. I still used it though, dividing each of the pages into three tall columns so I could fit all 12 months in the dual page spread. I have a feeling I may finish this journal before this December, but I'm trying really hard to be less forgetful of important dates. Wish me luck. All I have so far are the birthdays I remembered off the top of my head, the Met Gala, and my doctor's appointment on Wednesday.

I like the look of the columns, but I am a bit frustrated with how cramped these pages ended up being. I would have liked to have my future log behind my title page and to have spread it out over more pages, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

Many of my other pages for 2020 are list making spreads with Art Deco motifs thrown in for good measure. I reserved a whole three pages for a recap of the 2010s.

I did not have the best time in the past ten years, but I went through a ton of major life changes. I graduated middle school, high school, and college. I fell in love and had surgery on my knee. My mental health went in the garbage. I interviewed Jane Lynch and she called me honey! My title for this list spread really reflects my begrudging acceptance of the impact of the decade.

I capped those pages off with a quote from Søren Kierkegaard. I liked this idea in particular. You can't understand the result of a moment or a decision while you are living it, and we can't spend all of our times attempting to deconstruct the past without living in the present. A perfect idea for 2020!

I also used a single page spread (the other half of the final '10s recap page) to list out some gratitudes. I try to do this regularly as I think enjoying even the smallest of things can really make your life worth living. The first list item is obviously Miss Pepper, who wanted to ruin this spread by sitting on it, and it sort of devolves from there.

I used two pages to detail out my goals for the next year. One side is overarching goals, the general accomplishments I hope to achieve. Resolutions on the other side are specific. I like to use the SMART method in making goals, in that your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented (or Attainable), Realistic, and Timely. My college therapist taught me this method and I've had a lot of success in using it. This method requires you to consider the actions you specifically take to achieve your goals, and makes it less likely that your dreams remain as dreams. I try to link the resolutions to one of the goals to better delineate what must be done to accomplish them.

That's a wrap on my planning for the new decade. Happy New Year to you all, and I hope we all make 2020 one for the books!

How I DIYed an Accent Wall for Literally No Money

It involved a lot of paint chips and patience.

When you are living in a studio apartment with a wide open space, it can feel difficult to break up the space. You want everything to be cohesive, but you also want everything to have its own space. You don’t really want to feel like you are sleeping in your office. There are a lot of ways to try to find this delicate balance, but one way that has been particularly popular with millennials has been the accent wall.

You know the look. One wall in the apartment is set off with a different paint color or a wallpapered zone or a huge gallery wall. It certainly does set the space apart. But my landlord won’t let me paint, I can’t afford the peel-and-stick wallpaper that comes off easily, and a huge gallery wall involves buying a ton of canvases or art or pictures and assuming you can somehow make it all look good together. Plus, a lot of gallery walls can resemble a serial killer wall when assembled without the right je ne sais quoi.

I wanted to find an accent wall that wasn’t super expensive, over involved, or that would cause me to lose my security deposit. Luckily, you can make one on the cheap if you have a lot of patience and a lot of tape.

Even my cat loves it!

I had the idea of using paint chips for a while. One of my sorority sisters in college had a cool gradient in her apartment and I even attempted to replicate it in my first dorm room. It worked in theory, but not quite.

For perspective, my original college roommate moved out unexpectedly in the second semester, so I had a lot more room for decoration.

The method I ended up using involves a lot more patience and the use of a ruler, but the final effect is very cool.

What I essentially did was burgle Home Depot and take many more paint chips than would be reasonable for a normal paint job. All of the paint chips are free, obviously, but I had a feeling that it’s not exactly chill to take a huge chunk of just one swatch without the intention of ever buying a can of that paint. I snuck many more than my fair share into my purse and I only felt slightly bad about it. They are free. If they didn’t want you to take extras, they should have better security.

Thanks to Home Depot and Behr, I suppose.

I grabbed a bunch of swatches in different pinks. I threw in a couple of beiges and soft browns for good measure. And I grabbed enough that I wouldn’t have to go back. All of the swatches I chose were by Behr in their Marquee collection since they had a single color in each swatch.

Since each swatch had rounded edges and text inserts, I cut off the top and the bottom of each piece. I aimed for each one to be about 3” tall once cut, and I generally succeeded in that. If you have any patience, you will cut in small chunks and measure out every section so that they are all the same.

If you are me, you will put them in too large chunks, eyeball how long you think it should be, and cut too many at once with your good kitchen scissors. Some of mine ended up with diagonal edges because of this impatience, but it turned out fine.

Once all of your pieces are cut to size, arrange them in the gradient that you desire. You can have one straight line of each color if you’d like. I arranged mine in sequence and then bumped each subsequent row down by four swatches. I felt like this avoided feeling too repetitive or too on the nose.

Measure out on you wall how far apart the swatches should be so that you avoid overlarge gaps. I had about 1-1/2” of space on all sides of each swatch. If you have a long tape measure like I did, you can pin it to the wall for your first few rows. That way, everything will be in very straight lines. This is key since the higher up you get on the wall, the more likely you are to tilt your head, resulting in crooked lines. This happened a lot more toward the top for me since I am too short to reach that high, so a lot of the top ones required my standing on my desk and hoping for the best. If you’re not too picky, you can probably eyeball it.

Luckily, you can avoid the loss of your security deposit by using renter friendly solutions. For most of my wall I just used double sided tape. I used blue sticky tac for a few of the lower ones, which sometimes can leave blue residue on your walls. You can get away with normal tape most of the time. If you swipe some from your desk drawer or pilfer from your crafting supplies, you can avoid spending any money on this project at all.

My accent wall has served as the backdrop for my office area, my couch sat in front of it for a while, and it now backs my sleeping zone. It can certainly be painstaking work if you are picky, but it doesn’t need to be perfect. Few people are going to actually look closely enough to see if row #7 is 1-2” off of where it should be.

In the end, this project comes out looking very clean, crisp, and classy without much work or money on your part. It looks really involved, but it doesn’t require much artistry on your part. You just have to be patient and have a relatively level eye. You send a few hours on a step stool just taping things to your wall and suddenly your apartment looks so much more put together. Voila!