L-A: It happens every fall and every spring: Fashion Week Envy.  And when I get jealous, I tend to ignore something. If I can’t be a part of it, then I just pretend it doesn’t exist.  With coping skills like that, you’d think I also believed in a magical land where unicorns play with kittens in fields of rainbows and cupcake trees. (oh if only there were cupcake trees).

The trouble with NYFW and FPQT?  We can’t be there.  Forget that we aren’t big enough players to score front row invites. We can’t even be in the same city as fashion week. Which sort of makes reporting on it hard.  And despite my tendency to ignore things I can’t have, it’s hard to be a fashion blogger and ignore a major fashion week.  This brings me to our next trouble: how the hell do we report on it if we aren’t there? Seems a little disingenuous to just post pics from Style.com (which I will do in a moment, but only a little bit, so bear with me) and pretend like I was there.  We can pretend we were there because of the magic of the internets! (I wish I had some sparkles and a Disneyesque chime to go with that sentence).  Designers like Marc Jacobs are putting their shows live on the internets, which makes me feel a little less outposty here in Atlantic Canada when I can watch the show in comfy pants.  Our favourite magazines, like Fashion, sends real journos to NYC to tell us about what they see on and off the runway. Style.com not only has photos of all the shows, but occasionally, some video (like Tim Blanks reporting on Marc Jacobs or quick video of each piece at Thakoon).  And, of course, twitter has been all a twitter about Fashion Night Out and fashion week (and TIFF. I’d love to clone myself and be in NYC and T.O. right now).

Maybe I can’t be in New York, but I do get to enjoy some of the fun of the shows.  So, here are a few thoughts/favourites of what I’ve seen so far (I only wish I had the time to look at all the shows. And Ally has called in sick this week. Babies in daycare are like wee Typhoid Marys).

I heart the 1970s

Okay, not all of it. But apparently Derek Lam and Marc Jacobs heart that decade. And parts of their collection make me want to kick back with Mary or Maude and talk about being working girls with liberal politics. Or something. (Note to anyone who actually remembers the 1970s: my knowledge is clearly based on old family photos, reruns and That 70s show. The couple of years that I was alive during the 1970s are not exactly a point of reference).

I probably will never wear any facsimile of this pantsuit, but I do enjoy that it exists:

And this dress filled me with all kinds of happy:

So did this coat that opened the Marc Jacobs show. The model walked out and my immediate reaction was “want/need that coat”:

On closer inspection (and by that, I mean, the more I look at it), I don’t love it as much as when I watched the video.  The sleeves aren’t my thing, but I do love the colour and the buttons. In fact, I loved all the colour in the show. I always get confused and forget that I’m watching the Spring fashions on the runway (my brain is just getting used to sweater weather), but once I remembered that, I was down with the colour and the sandals (yay! wedges! I may yet find a pair I love).  I was not okay with the following:

I love a good Taxi Driver inspired hat as much as the next girl, but I am not so sure about satin overalls. I can’t decide what it is I hate about them: that they are overalls or that they are satin. I still liked the colour that was happening, so I was able to forgive and move on.

Like I needed an excuse to buy a scarf

Final style of today is the blazer/scarf combo that I loved from DKNY:

I want/need more blazers in my life. And I need to start wearing scarves more often. I’ve got a pretty decent collection already, but I think I might hit up the consignment stores around town and add to it. Dear scarves, particularly silk scarves: this is your year to make my wardrobe awesome. Let’s do this!