The Coolest Cat in Atlanta

Atlanta has been quite the experience for me. This is where I fell in love with men's fashion and began pursuing men's fashion's illustrative avenue. It began with the suggestive word of a friend (Mike McLaughlin- commencefailure) and a gift card from HomeGoods. Street Style had already taken root in popular culture and I was yet unaware of it. Polos that draped my body like a Roman Toga and Khakis that barely stayed resting upon my hips were the height of my fashionable endeavors. With my gift-card and passion in tow I purchased some Khaki Chinos and a casual Calvin Klein, blue-tartan, button up shirt. I knew it! I knew that this would make me the hippest kid in town. The coolest cat in Atlanta. Catlanta didn't know what was heading its way… or not. This first attempt at fashion glory was pale in the light of folks found across the entire internet spectrum, foolish perhaps. Lucky for me my laptop had been stolen my first night in Atlanta and I hadn't yet gathered the funds to enter the world of the informed- whether that be about fashion or about the world as a whole. Nevermind my failures in the beginning, the first step was still glorious even if it was only for me.

It would still be another two years before that me became this me. Before the chino wearing, bright-eyed passion began thinking of illustrating fashion. Before the act of illustrating was truly a pursuit. That first step was brilliant and beautiful.

To purchase this 3x5" index card watercolor illustration click here.

Love

So I was talking with my friend Evan, the guy for whom I am doing the musketeer shirt design. He was mulling over other shirt ideas, and we were discussing interesting ways of designing more than the image. That being said, he really inspired me to get down and do my own shirt design.

I stole the image that I worked so hard on in the christening of ichLOVEthys. To say I stole it is to say that it wasn't really mine in the first place, in full honesty I only took the initial concept and inspiration and ran with it, really really far. Thus, the image is mine to utilize how I will.

Right after work that evening I bought some acrylic ink from Binders and used the remaining balance from my Associate of the Quarter gift card from HomeGoods to buy a few shirts-one from TJMaxx and two from Marshalls.

On the way back to the apartment I stopped at Publix to purchase some amazingly awesome Sweet Leaf Green Tea with Mint & Honey. It's a must have in any sort of inspirational endeavor.

The remainder of the night, from about 8 in the evening to 1 in the morning- with one stop to eat din with my roomie and view an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show via Hulu- I worked on the composition and application.

And the result is a truly creepy image of my holding the final product!...more or less.

Here the shirt is being modeled by a very attractive man. I realize that it is probably stepping over some boundaries talking about a man like this, but what can I say, when I see an attractive man I can't hold it back.

Come to find out that I need to find a way to set the ink in the shirt before I wear it. Let me say this without too much laughter... I sweat, I know, crazy right!? anyway, apparently my sweat caused the ink in the arm pit region to bleed into the adjacent shirt area.

I guess that experimenting means that you sometimes make mistakes, even when the overall project turns out great.

New Pants...

I bought these jeans from the Ross on the same strip mall as my Homegoods the other day, and I was absolutely in love with them-ignore shoe color. They are Calvin Klein blue frost jeans, which really has little meaning to me, but they were just awesome. The break in the pant seemed adequate to me, not too little or too much. But here's the problem, as can be seen in the second image, the top of the pants were low. In the image, where the bottom of the shirt sits is essentially where the top of the pant rose.

If I had the urge to tuck in my shirt it would look goofily low, and if I decided that I should raise my pants, then the break in the pant would have disappeared and major flooding would have happened.

I debated whether to keep them and deal with my insecurity, or to return them.

The final decision came with some advice from my roomie Andrew. He mentioned that if I felt comfortable and liked them then I should keep them. He told me that they looked fine, which is an opinion I was holding myself, but I just didn't feel right in those pants.

So I did what needed to be done, and I returned those pants...I feel that I made the right decision. Thank you Michael M. for your insight on fashion and your suggestions on fashion blogs and such. It helped in my decision to make the right decision.