Two cute
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• Who they are: Emily Storrow and Aaron Gilmour
• What they’re wearing: On her, a floral dress she bought on a recent trip to California and a teal bag from Urban Outfitters. On him, a navy velvet newsboy cap from Head to Toe in Black Mountain.
• Why we love it: There’s a casual retro look to Emily and Aaron’s attire that seems so free of irony. Despite the way her dress, Keds and brightly colored bag reference the mid-’80s a la Drew Barrymore in The Wedding Singer (and, for that matter, his hat is pretty much circa-late-’70s Marc Boland), the result is totally fresh. And we don’t mean that in a Doug E. Fresh kinda way.
Try this on
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A recent prowl through Asheville’s Goombay! festival turned up plenty of inspiring sights. Vendors lined Eagle and Market streets selling paintings, carvings and fabrics — mostly with Caribbean or African themes. Some favorites: tables filled with glass and ceramic beads, lifelike wooden giraffe sculptures and the salespeople themselves dressed in elegant African attire and head wraps.
These dashikis — men’s shirts worn in West Africa — make a brightly colored display next to a collection of hand-woven baskets. The shirt was adopted by many African-Americans during the 1960s cultural struggles. Comfortable and colorful, it was also favored by ’60s-era hippies. These days, dashikis still represent African heritage, and they also work well with a plain skirt and wide belt for a Bohemian look.
Loose threads
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For fashion-history buffs, Ian Kelly’s latest endeavor, Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style (Free Press, 2006), recounts the rise (and fall) of the first dandy. “Beau Brummell was the first person famous for being famous … the first metrosexual — 200 years before the word was conceived,” explains a press release. Chokingly high cravats, corseting and stockings with padded calves: and this was men’s wear. Add to that excessive spending, name dropping and an STD or two and you’ve got the perfect end-of-summer read.
For more Asheville fashion, visit www.topdrawerstreetstyle.blogspot.com. Send your fashion news to amarshall@mountainx.com or call 251-1333, ext. 124.
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