My grandmother, no longer with me on this earth, wore her cap to bed every night. She also could read your cards and tell your fortune, and wrote songs where creating the rhyme took precedent over making sense of the verse. I have often worn wool hats inside the house which makes my mother sigh that I remind her of her mother and thus, I infer, she isn’t sure of what to think of my hat. She wouldn’t wear it in the house, I also get out of this. This weekend I went skiing (and did not fall once thank you), and so last Friday, tramping through the rain, I stopped at Crossroads and found myself a new hat.

Crossroads, as you may know, is one of the greatest stores in San Francisco. I haven’t written about it yet, so perhaps I will do so tomorrow - I am trying to keep focused from post to post. Basically, it is a mix of used and new clothing, always in style and always reasonably priced.

At Crossroads (The one in the Filmore District) I got this hat by WeSC. WeSC stands for “We Are The Superlative Conspiracy” and they are one of these new types of clothing brands/art/activist groups. They feature on their website a pretty cool image of a bunch of cool looking people hanging out in the park, combined with collage-ish cutouts. Their top level links get you to their Spring Summer Collection (Its January!) and a list of activists - actually a portfolio of skaters, artist, musicians, and other folks who I guess endorse WeSC.

You might be trying to figure out if I am on the side or against WeSC - well, that is kind of what their name makes you ask as well so I will leave you guessing. I will say that the hat wasn’t expensive, and besides Crossroads there are plenty of places to get a good deal on their stuff. But here are the pictures of my new favorite piece of clothing: my wool WeSC cap. Love you Grandma Katie.

Stil in Berlin is one of the best street style blogs out there. It is mostly photos and shows the fashion of Berlin, Germany - My German friend told me ‘Stil’ means ‘Style’, but with a slightly different connotation.

It means more like, in the style of. Like, in the style of baroque vs. rococo.

Say that outloud and it is funnier.

In Germany right now, it is really cold, so most of their pictures are of people wearing stylish heavy coats. Here is a link to their August 2007 Archives so you can get a sense for what those Berliners are wearing under their jackets.

At Mark’s annual Post-Holiday Blues party last Saturday, I got to play dress up a little - Harkening back to the “Which Overpass is this Party Supposed to Be Under?” days, I found some pants that fit at the waist but then just….kept….getting…wider…and…wider until the cuffs were about 50 inches per leg:

Also note the glowstick.

My brother lives in San Diego, and he is a LOT cooler than me. It didn’t start out that way, but as it sometimes goes, the younger sibling takes the good traits of the older one, and expands.

My brother has expanded to San Diego, where he is in touch with all the galleries, community events and new boutiques. He keyed me in to one, Kate Ross, a boutique for men and women carrying brands such as Hobo, Brown Sound, Dita, and Friend or Foe. He says this about Kate Ross:

This is a store in my neighborhood. She just opened another - a shoe store and home store with my friend who is an artist - Amy Paul - beautiful stuff. They had their grand opening last night - very cool. DJ, bar, lots of people.

I had been helping all week to get the store ready. We put in this awesome stair case

Did I mention my brother can build things like staircases?

Anyway, if you like clothes and you live in San Diego, Kate Ross is a boutique worth looking into. It isn’t too late to be the first of your friends to go there!

I hope this reaches the interested in time - the San Francisco Based Fashion Design House and Online Shop, Improperazzi, are showcasing their work tongiht at AsiaSF via the STILETTO party. As I have never been to AsiaSf, I will quote from the 7×7 website:

This SF landmark dishes up Cal-Asian cuisine along with gender-illusionist entertainment, shattering the conventional idea of “dinner and a show.”

I want to go RIGHT NOW. But I’ll have to wait for tonight.

STILETTO is the Friday/Saturday night party hosted by Andrew Parker where you can get your fill of photography, film, DJ action.

Finally, back to the fashion: Improperazzi is an edgy shop, on the street style end of the fashion spectrum. They have print tees for men and women, bags and hoodies. Their website is awesome. You should really look at it right now. It is made to look like a skeezy tabloid lying on the table at an even skeezier bar. Their clothes: A small collection, the tees are all printed or screened - skulls, scissors, Asian Flag inspired, repeating patterns. Many of the prints have a dark humor about them. The bags, from their site, look like regular bags that they spray painted with stencils. Only one hoodie, a big skull - I wasn’t as much of a fan as of the tees.

Check out the show tonight, or at least check out their striking website.

San Francisco weather almost requires hoodies for guys and girls. You can get away with wearing them over shirts, over dresses, from the most casual to the casually elegant outfit. But the thing about hoodies on girls - I guess I should qualify that by saying: Girls who have bigger bust measurement - is that they don’t quite look right.

Check out Jay-Z in his visit to Africa. I got this photo from http://holamun2.com/. Jay-Z looks great. Shades of yellow, brown, white, screen of a map of the world across the chest - hood falls nicely. But imagine a woman with boobs wearing this hoodie. No good. Just looks like she’s trying to hide herself away.

The issue is, I love hoodies. Embrodiered, printed, plain, knit, insulated - I love the look. Not that they don’t make hoodies for women, but it isn’t the same.

I suppose I’ll just have to admire from afar.

After posting the Washington Post fashion slide show on the presidential candidates sense of style, I found an more indepth, more objective look at the candidates style by the Style Guy of GQ’s men.style.com.

Democrats
Republicans

The Style Guy is one of my favorites, and I highly recommend all guys interested in fashion to take a look at his work.

The Washington Post, a newspaper dear to me, and in my opinion the second best paper in the nation after the New York Times, never fails to address politicians as L.A. treats celebrities - in the gossip column.

Here is an analysis of the fashion of the current presidential frontrunners. Using the short flash slideshow format,it was written, compiled, and reported by Robin Givhans. I watched each slideshow in this order: Obama, Clinton, McCain, Edwards, Thompson, Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee. She sometimes looks at the clothes, sometimes the hair, and sometimes the audacity of the candidate to have worn what they wore.

I enjoyed hearing about the candidates’ fashion choices, but iIt is pretty clear where Ms. Givhan’s personal opinions lie. Though she did not outright endorse any candidate, I would guess that how forgiving she is to each candidate’s fashion would translate to her opinion of that candidate. See which candidate’s style she likes the best, and which one you like best, at the Washington Post’s “Campaigning in Style” feature.

And don’t forget to vote in the primaries, if you are eligible.