Necklace: J.Crew
Tank: Forever 21 (Jessica Harvey's closet: www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-harvey/22/58b/bb9;
Belt: J.Crew;
Pants: Mossimo;
Topsiders: Sperry
All photos by my good friend and colleague, Kristine Constantino: www.linkedin.com/in/kristineconstantino
Let's get one thing straight: stripes for as long as I can remember have represented one thing in life I have simultaneously respected and disdained; uniforms. Going to a private high school a polo paired with a striped skirt was part of the everyday uniform, to boot with tube socks; I hated that thing. Every time I wore those stripes I swear without fail I would get into some sort of altercation. Be it with my parents, the dean at my high school, or some poor unsuspecting teacher that was just trying to do their job. Soon enough I was associating stripes with a recusant connotation. In fact, just yesterday I fell off a bike (badly might I add) while wearing stripes. Cool, everyone cares, anyways..
*disclaimer: Hi all! I deeply apologize for all of my actions as a teenager. Thank you for not killing me*
Anyway, back to me. As someone who prides herself on having fierce individuality while constantly and consistently doing her own thing I found the whole uniform thing entirely constricting, tauten, even suffocating. I wanted to do my own thing and this institution was hell bent on all of us looking the same, the antithesis of my beliefs, no thanks.
At the same time stripes have been the moniker of a sport I have followed ever since my Dad took me to my first Giant's game when I was 10 (PacBell Park just opened and it was shiny & new!): baseball. Uniforms make sense in that entity; sports, teams, representing unity or that you are only as strong as your weakest player, something along those lines? I would also like to point out that many athletes fall victim to rage while in stripes, much like the teenage Kelly. Just something to think about.. Nonetheless outside of those 9+ innings I had maja issues gettin' behind the whole uniform thing.
Clearly times have changed. I realized that stripes also represented a pretty rad country (I deeply apologize for the imperialism/nationalistic attitude I am about to express, but really I'm not all that apologetic): AMERRRICCAAA. The very definition of freedom. Other than that, Louie Vuitton, Prada, Moschino, WunderKind, and Balenciaga totally capitalized on stripes in the Spring of 2011 and my life has not been the same since *embellishing for dramatic effect* Thus my love affair with stripes began, and if yours hasn't already -- it should. XOXO
