Can I Pull This Off??- An Intro

If I had to describe this blog in one sentence, I would say this:

It chronicles two best friends living 1,640 miles apart who are committing to suppressing their fashion laziness and amplifying their shared love of style to look as fabulous and beautiful as they are.

Okay, that was a terrible sentence. Any decent English teacher would point out it contains too much information, so let me break it down for you.

Christy and I (Kaley) are best friends.

As in “talk for hours”, “watch ridiculous TV shows together”, “disagree and still understand each other”, “our kids will be friends or else” -type friends. If we were in middle school and had a top-secret-best-friend notebook, we would mean it when we wrote “LYLAS!” at the end of our notes.

This is a photo of Christy and me getting ready for her wedding. I am laughing at something hilarious she said, which is typical. I am also wearing an alien hat, which isn’t typical. I usually only wear it when I’m studying. And getting ready for weddings, I guess. I don’t want to concern you with my fashion choices too early on.

When Christy and I are together, one of our favorite things to do is go shopping at vintage clothing stores. We love looking at (and sometimes purchasing) clothes. Because we love fashion.

Not in the sense that you’ll see us at Fashion Week (do real people go there?) or hear us talking about our favorite designers or anything like that. We just enjoy looking good because, like most people, we like to feel good about ourselves. And we feel good when we can be fun, creative and expressive with what we wear. Fortunately, we both realize there are boundaries on how “creative” we can/should get. You won’t see us duplicating Lady Gaga’s wardrobe any time soon.

Well… At least not frequently...

Christy and I keep our style choices in check by running things by each other, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say few people can maintain this dynamic in a friendship the way we do. When I ask Christy, “Does this look okay?”/ “If I get this what would I wear with it??”/ “Can I pull this off?!?”/etc, she always has a helpful, honest answer.

But despite the fact that we are capable of being creative and super stylish, there is a dark side to this tale.

Unfortunately for us both- and for the people that have to see us- there are many days when Christy and do not feel very creative. We feel quite the opposite- completely uninspired.

And in reality, I’m just trying to come up with a nice way of saying we get lazy.

Here we are on a lazy day at the Cathedral of Junk in Austin, TX. I can't help but think it's a bad sign that I'd rather look at the pile of junk in this picture than myself.

You’ll hear more about that as we continue in this blog, but basically for me that looks like turning to the old, familiar jeans and v-neck t-shirts rather than taking time to coordinate an outfit that makes it look like I care about myself enough to put thought into it. My laziness makes me look boring and feel, for lack of a better descriptive word, completely “blah.”

And, as we all know, if we don’t feel good about the way we look, we don’t feel good about ourselves across the board. So on those days, how can I expect other people to enjoy being around me when I feel like this?

As Christy and I realized how much our fashion laziness actually affected us, we decided we both wanted to break out of our style doldrums. We made a commitment to hold one another accountable to outwardly displaying who we are on the inside, and we agreed to check in with each other to ensure we’re both being as fashionable as we can (and ought) to be.

The only problem is: Christy and her husband recently moved all the way from Texas to New York City.

I know, I’m jealous, too.

Every picture she takes makes me want to move to NY- the city should just hire her.

Thus, the blog.

Since I can’t really pop over to Christy’s apartment to make sure her outfit is slammin before she heads out the door each morning (unless someone wants to make a huge donation…. Anyone?), we’re going to save money- and the environment- by checking in here.

We’ll each write a post each week with our best and worst outfits (Lord help us), with a number of other goodies thrown in. For instance- fashion challenges, questions, inspirations, and maybe even a tutorial every now and then.

We’re excited to have a chance to write together. And to share something we enjoy with whoever wants to read it. Who knows? Maybe it’s something you can relate to. If so, we hope you’ll check in every once in a while and share your thoughts with us.

As we begin, you’ll get to hear from both me and Christy (who is hilarious- seriously, you’ll love reading everything she writes) as we explain our fashion histories and answer a few backgrounds questions- about us, our friendship, and the blog. So stay tuned! It’s going to be great!