Interview with Kenzie Faith

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Kenzie of Kenzie Faith. She runs a great blog and never disappoints with the photos she posts. She's also very friendly & sweet! Here's what she had to say about her blog & her style.

S: How did you get into blogging?
K: One day, I was on Google, searching for outfit ideas when I found a blog called Le Quaintrelle. From there, I found so many other inspiring blogs and immediately fell in love with the “blogosphere.” Soon after, I started “Kenzie Faith“!

S: What is your favorite part about your blog?
K: It provides a fun way to share creativity and to find inspiration! Also, I’ve met the loveliest people along the way.

S: Do you take your own outfit photos or have someone help?
K: I rarely take my own outfit photos thanks to my beautiful sister, Kelsi. I’m so thankful for her. My tripod photos just don’t compare!

S: How would you describe your style?
K: I’m never sure how to answer that question, but through blogging I’m starting to learn what I like and what I don’t like. I’ve noticed that I seem to lean more towards simplicity and modesty. For the most part, over the top just really isn’t me!

S: Who are your style icons and influences?
K: I absolutely adore Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen’s style. Also, Lauren Conrad!

S: What are your three spring must-haves?
K: Cat-eye sunglasses, Sandal wedges & a floppy hat!

S: What is your favorite day look - for just running errands, shopping or having lunch with friends?

K: I usually find myself feeling most confident/comfortable in a loose shirt worn with a fitted skirt, tights and flats! 

S: What is your favorite night look - for going out on special evenings or to parties?

K: A baby doll dress paired with heels, a clutch and a curly hair-do!

 
S: What advice can you give other aspiring fashion and/or lifestyle bloggers?
K: Don’t be too influenced! Stay true to yourself and always blog about what you like.

S: Anything exciting in store for the future of your blog?
K: I’m actually thinking about starting a blog shop! I’m hoping to make things like totes, hair bows and bracelets :)

  Stay tuned for future blog interviews & a giveaway, coming soon!

Daily Inspiration

I've been MIA for a few weeks, but not for lack of wanting to blog! My laptop has officially been pronounced dead, and I have been relegated to using other people's laptops and/or cell phones to check email, facebook and blogs. It's really strange to go from using the internet daily (and several hours, at that) to only checking in with the online world a few times a week. Yet at the same time, my productivity has increased. I've finished 2 books, The Lo Down, Sugarbabe, and currently am in the middle of Water for Elephants. I have more time to spend writing (the old fashioned way), reading, playing with Leo, cooking or any other number of activities besides being lazy with a computer in my lap. In a way, it's kind of refreshing. Now, if I could only squeeze daily rigorous exercise back into the mix.

As for this week, here is your daily dose of eye candy goodness!

In Good Company - or how I came to be surrounded by the past

I am fortunate enough to have a mother who dabbles in vintage. She runs her own online store, Memphis Vintage, and eBay shop, so there are always new vintage dresses, shoes and jewelry to borrow (or keep for myself!). Over the years, I've been among the company of Dior, Chanel, Lily Pulitzer and Alfred Shaheen, among many others. But for me, it's not about labels. It's about the story of the dress. I would construct scenes based on the clothes and weave a story from those old and often fragile threads. I loved the possibilities of showcasing such beautiful pieces in new and exciting ways. My favorite pieces over the years to work with were the 1950s prom dresses. Give me a full circle skirt and some tulle, and I am ecstatic over the images I can bring to life that form in my head. I'm definitely more of the behind-the-lens type of girl than the model in front of it because I like to be the artist, the one creating to give birth to the vision in my head.

For years I had imagined myself as a fashion photographer working out of Manhattan, shooting glamourous spreads for the high fashion magazines like Vogue and ELLE that I had grown up reading. While that dream turned out to be more of a hobby than a reality, I still take great pleasure in concocting photo shoot ideas in my head and bringing them to life. Years later, I still love being able to look back through the photos I have taken growing up and analyze the dresses of yesteryear that have waltzed in and out of my life, as well the people that may have also come and gone. I have so many ideas swirling around my head for what may lie in store for Chattanooga photography. Now all I need is another vintage Dior and a Nikon! I'll get on that...

The Drunk Cupcake & the Very Windy Day

 

Two weeks ago was spring break, but I'm not talking about the kind of spring break that is legendary of universities across the country involving a mass migration of college students to places like Panama City beach and South Padre island. Being a recent college grad, I don't have such luxuries anymore because life isn't a J. M. Barrie novel and apparently, you really do have to grow up at some point. Because I work at an elementary school, I fall into the loophole of adults who still get a spring break. The catch 22 here is that I have no money and have student loans and bills coming out of my ears, so I wasn't able to be whisked away to a remote tropical island and sip paper umbrella drinks and work on my tan (or serious lack thereof.) So I went home to Memphis to visit my family. A far cry from the beach trips and debauchery-filled weekends I was used to, a trip home is more about taking it easy, eating free home cooked meals (mmm, honey roasted chicken!) and catching up with old friends.

Enter B, a very outgoing and vibrant girl whom I have known since middle school. She has been my partner in crime on so many adventures (like the April Fools jokes we would always play on our college roommate), as well as my personal fashion model. She has been put in more strange outfits and odd locations than I can count, like stuck in a dark closet while wearing a corset and crinoline or strewn across a grave in a 1940s evening gown. So you can imagine my excitement about going home and plotting my next photo shoot with B. First, I had to check out my mother's inventory of costumes (she runs Memphis Vintage and also does eBay).

People who lived in the 40s, 50s and 60s obviously did not have weight issues. Everyone must have been on the coffee & cigarettes diet because vintage clothes are tiny! We tried on several dresses including a pink 60s lace cocktail dress, a 50s party dress embroidered with roses and a fabulous beaded 70s evening gown. Our hips and womanly hourglass curves were too much for the dresses to handle. Eventually, we found a day dress and a circle skirt that worked. Next, it was off to Gigi's cupcakes!

 

Upon arriving, we were greeted with uncertain stares (except for the five year old girl who probably thought we were dressed like princesses or something). We ordered four cupcakes to use as props for our pictures, tantalized by the idea of eating them later - which does nothing for our figures but make us "more womanly" and subsequently unable to fit into future vintage dresses. So goes the sacrifice for a good photo! We drove to Shelby Farms to set up camp. The trek out to the field was not kind to my heels or our dresses. We had to fight the wind every step of the way and do everything possible to keep our dresses from flapping up over our heads! But we managed to get a few good pictures out of it. By now, our poor cupcakes had been tossing and turning turning in their box during the ride over and most of the frosting had begun to slide off. One cupcake absolutely refused to stand upright, thus it became "the drunk cupcake." Ironic that said cupcake was the champagne flavored cake.

Shelby Farms was far too windy for us to get the kinds of shots we wanted, so we snapped until our hearts content and hightailed it back to my house to finish taking pictures, twirl around uncontrollably in our full skirts and jump up and down like excited three year olds who have just spotted Mickey Mouse, all the while with B screaming, "Your frosting's in my finger!" (Dyslexic sentences make me giggle). In retrospect, we probably had just consumed too much sugar, but who's to say!? I was on vacation after all...