Girls in the Men's Room

Striped polo shirt: Old Navy * Skirt: Forever 21, remixed * Two-tone brogues: UO, remixed * Belt: Target, remixed

Thanks for all your awesome comments about my hair yesterday! I'm pretty excited about going for a slightly more tousled pixie next, which will consequently be perfectly timed with the arrival of autumn and cooler temps. For now, though, I'm going to embrace the super-short, clean, almost geometric look of this cut. I wear less makeup and almost no jewelry when my hair is this short, to let my face be the focus of attention. I start to look oddly off-balance with metallic baubles and dark eyeshadow, so I keep it simple at this stage.

I've found myself looking to Mia Farrow (a la Rosemary's Baby), Natalie Portman (post- V for Vendetta, as she grew out her hair), and Jean Seberg (a la Breathless) for inspiration these days, because I think they perfectly captured the look of the 60s ingenue. And while I'm nowhere near as sprite-like as any of them, their styles give me a good idea of what works with this kind of more extreme haircut. It helps that stripes look good with any hairstyle, since I seem to be borderline obsessed with them this summer. I really love the interplay of androgyny and femininity in fashion and style, so I'm very drawn to looks that are a bit more ambiguous. To me, the short hair highlights my femininity in an interesting way, drawing attention to my bone structure, my eyes, my mouth, in a way that is more obscured when my hair is longer. So I actually tend to lean towards more menswear-inspired clothing when my hair is really short, because, oddly, "girly" clothing starts to feel like a femininity overload.*

*To disclaim, I use the terms androgynous, feminine, menswear-inspired, girly, and ambiguous with a major grain of salt. I have written before about the gendered division of fashion and style, and I really dislike the idea that certain things make you more or less of a woman, or man, than you feel to be. However, I find it very difficult to find terms that fit what I'm really trying to convey, simply because the vocabulary of style is inherently gendered. I don't really want to get into all of this now, but if you're interested in it, you can read my post here and Chelsea's interview here, which both deal with the idea of gender in fashion and style.

Title song: Garbage, "Androgyny"