Oct 25, 2012

Keep It Light

Madeline Beard Fashion fashion, girly, lace, riding boots 1 Comment

This morning I woke up with a spring in my step which was surprising considering this week has felt like an uphill battle between myself and academia. While I’m not out of the weeds just yet, something about this day just made me want to feel good. Maybe it was the weather — warm and sunny but with the best parts of fall, like big piles of leaves just waiting to be jumped in. Or maybe it was this song, that my dear friend Cristina played for me yesterday:

Whatever the reason for my sunny disposition, I wanted to put together an outfit that outwardly reflected that. I chose a more girly color palette than I normally opt for, but offset the ensemble with some chunky brown socks and my favorite riding boots.

I don’t normally wear a lot of jewelry, but when I do each piece usually holds some sort of meaning or good memories. Today I wore two of my favorite necklaces, a delicate gold wish bone and a gold coin with my sign (Aries) printed on it. I picked them up when I was visiting one of my closest friends in LA two summers ago, and I feel like they give me a little boost when I wear them together — I like what they represent, the wish bone for optimism and the Aries for being true to myself.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph another good friend for my Eagle article. On Friday, I’ll post the article and the photos, but I wanted to give you guys a sneak peek:

And get excited, tomorrow will be the second part to my two-part Halloween Inspirations post! If you haven’t read the first one (and still need some costume ideas for this weekend), check it out here. More ghoulish and ghostly adventures to come, so stay tuned!

♥

Oct 16, 2012

That Fall Feelin’

Madeline Beard Fashion fall, fashion, seasons, transitions, vacation 5 Comments

Coming home after a vacation is never easy; make that a vacation to the sunny, crystal clear beaches of Mexico and it is near impossible to snap back to reality. I woke up yesterday to a cloudy, grey DC morning and realized that I needed to do something to make this transition feel a little less painful. I began to unpack from my trip, which soon led to me reorganizing my entire closet, finally packing away my shorts, breezy tops and lightweight dresses I had lived in this summer. In place of these pieces, I hung up some of my coziest sweaters and laid out all of the boots that had been sitting in the back of my closet. The act of rediscovering these seasonal favorites had a hugely positive effect. At the end of my hour-long organizing session, I threw on “the best of fall” : black leather riding boots, patterned tights, a sweater dress, faux fur vest, dark lip and a beanie for good measure. The dress gave me comfort, the vest gave me structure and some polish, the beanie gave me a bit of grungy edge in contrast to the vest, and the whole look gave me a new attitude.

As it turns out, the temperature climbed to 75 degrees and sunny yesterday afternoon, so I had to strip off the vest and forgo the beanie. The clouds cleared and the change in weather accurately matched my change in outlook. Today as I still struggle to smoothly transition from vacation back to my daily grind, I decided to start making a list of all the things that excite me about fall. Here are a few things that I came up with so far:

Pumpkin Spice Lattes at my neighborhood Starbucks

All of the seasonal pies I will bake

Lighting candles that smell like cinnamon on cold nights

HALLOWEEN (one of my very favorite holidays)

Jumping into a pile of fallen leaves

Flannels, knee socks, riding boots and blazers

The list is ongoing, but those are what immediately came to mind. What are you guys most excited about for fall? Tweet me or write a comment below.

♥

Oct 10, 2012

Capital Food Fight

Madeline Beard Fashion, Food capital food fight, culinary, fashion, food, Mexico 1 Comment

The last 48 hours has been pretty nuts — between design work, a midterm and packing for Mexico, I feel like I have barely been able to catch my breath. Last night I had the chance to take a break from all the madness to attend Capital Food Fight, a huge culinary event to benefit DC Central Kitchen. I started working as the graphic design intern for DCCK this summer and a huge part of the internship has been doing all of the design work for the event (everything from the program to posters to promo cards to invites). It was pretty surreal to walk into the Ronald Reagan Building and see hundreds of people holding the program I designed — definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I have had as a graphic designer so far.

The event in itself was amazing. I now know the true meaning of having eyes bigger than my stomach — over 60 restaurants made tasting plates for the event and I think I attempted to try a good 30 dishes. As a college student in her first semester without a meal plan, this change in my consistent “soup, salad and occasional Chinese takeout” diet was like foodie heaven. Below are a few photos I snapped from the event, but first here’s what I decided to wear:

I chose to go with a feminine/masculine pairing. For some reason, I was really inspired by both Carrie’s tuxedo for Stanford and Anthony’s wedding in Sex and the City 2 and Anne Hathaway’s tuxedo look when she hosted the Oscars. No idea where that inspiration came from, it just sort of popped into my brain as I was digging through my closet and I just thought I’d go with it.

And the perfect way to end the evening:

I leave for Mexico in T-5 hours. Maybe I will finish packing? Maybe I will sleep? Both seem pretty ambitious at this point in the night. Looking forward to sharing all of my travels with you guys, for now I need to figure out where I buried all my sandals and stashed my sunscreen…

♥