Ruby Red

Hello, readers! (LOL)

It’s been a while since my last update, but I have a very good reason: this post is SO long it’s taken me ages to get done with it. I’m serious – it’s so long it should be illegal (LOL). I can't believe now that, when I first started with this blog, I used to take about 6 or 7 pictures for each post. This one has around fifty in it (LOL!), so you can imagine that choosing and editing all of them has been a bit of a tough job. It seems like I keep taking more and more pictures each time. I'm afraid my next outfit post is going to be a coffee table book... KISS style! LMAO ;)

Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

As usual, the initial idea for this outfit came from the nail polish. I actually made it myself, by mixing a metallic burgundy nail polish from Basic with an extremely cheap transparent no-brand nail polish with red mini-paillettes (I’m still struggling to find a replacement, BTW – I used all of it for this photoshoot, and I can’t find any other nail polish that has mini-paillettes THIS big T_T). I didn’t even know at the time how the experiment was going to come out, but the result was definitely spectacular :D

I immediately thought that my cracked red and black metallic jeans from Mango would be a natural match for such an impressive piece of nail art (LOL). As you might have already guessed, they are the red twins to my beloved cracked golden jeans, and they are every bit just as killer ;)

Later, as I kept searching for inspiration, I came across these street style pics on RidSnap of a guy wearing a look so incredibly reminiscent of my own Voodoo Dandy outfit I couldn’t even believe it. I wondered if I should take this coincidence as a sign to kick the VD back into life. I spent some time thinking about which Voodoo Dandy elements I could possibly reuse, but I had a few doubts… My biggest concern was that I didn’t want to repeat myself that much. Plus, it was probably still way too hot to try to recreate such a winter-y outfit.

With all those things in mind, I fully submerged myself into the painful task of putting this outfit together. I have to say that this turned out to be one of the most exhausting and frustrating stylings I’ve ever been through. For real.

[Casual shot of me while suffering the attack of a bee LOL]

I started by trying on a black denim jacket, basically because I wanted to run away from the skinny metallic jeans + blazer cliché (and, by that, I mean that I didn’t want this look to be a crossover between Voodoo Dandy and Prince Not-So-Charming LOL), so I thought about giving the outfit a military/biker edge instead. In case you’re wandering, YES, I was totally copying that idea from the Japanese Voodoo Dandy (LOL).

The mix looked quite OK. The problem was that, at that point, I didn’t even know how cold or how hot it was really going to be out there, so I wasn’t too sure about what to actually wear underneath the jacket. I tried on tons of T-shirts (yup, I was still repeating the Voodoo pattern LOL), but none of them seemed to click. The problem with these jeans is that their texture is so tridimensional it makes every T-shirt print feel flat and static... So, all my cool T-shirts were going to be a total NO.

And the biker jacket was out as well.

It didn’t look that terrible, but it failed to produce the super spectacular fireworks I was expecting to see (LOL). I felt like the jacket was way too subdued for these jeans.

At that point, I had only 25 minutes left to finish my outfit, so I had to think quickly. I placed my hope on a second-hand wine-coloured jacket from Humana. It had a nice metallic satin texture that could be very compatible with my jeans, and the colour match was quite perfect. However, I had my issues with its shape. This is a strange hybrid sort of jacket. It’s shaped a bit like a parka, even though the fabric is really thin, and the curious thing is that it’s equipped with a removable hood and belt. All those things make it pretty interesting, but, at the time, they were creating me some real trouble.

I thought the jacket looked a little bit too nautical, so I removed the hood in order to make it look less like a fisherman’s raincoat (LOL). The result was not bad. It felt quite adequate for the weather, and it looked pretty elegant too. However, I was starting to feel that the whole thing was coming out a little bit too monochrome. I have nothing against total looks, but I was just feeling the overwhelming need to add different colours to the mix.

The problem was I didn’t have the slightest idea of what else I was going to wear with it: …a shirt? …a T-shirt? …whatever? I tried on my red turtleneck (…and there I was, copying my Voodoo Dandy again e_e), but it was way too thick for the still summer-y weather. I had already discarded print T-shirts, so what was left? …a shirt? …a jabot blouse?

‘A jabot blouse’… that was actually a not-so-crazy idea.

 

I tried my super gothic black jabot blouse from Mango to mixed results. The good news were it looked pretty cool with the jeans, and it added a brand new level of class to the whole thing. It had suddenly upgraded the look from casual to formal, and that seemed to be exactly what these jeans were asking for.

The bad news were that the jacket and the blouse seemed to have absolutely zero chemistry. There was no room for both in the same outfit, so I had to make a dramatic decision: which of them should I keep? Like in the Highlander movie, there could be only one (LMAO).

Of course, the blouse turned out to be the winner. The jacket was cool, but finding a shirt that could actually match these jeans was SO hard, that it made this factor a top priority.

So, once again, I found myself in the need to get a new jacket. I felt sorry for the one I had just discarded. I would have really loved to pair it with these jeans, and perhaps I’ll do it… some other time.

Anyway, there was no time left for being sentimental. My one and only priority was to pick a jacket for this look in order to get it finished.

Sticking to my line of self-plagiarism, I decided to try on my Voodoo Dandy blazer. It was a really safe bet so, of course, it looked great. However, I realized I didn’t remember how damn thick this blazer was! It fit perfectly with the red and black theme, but there was absolutely no way I could wear THAT in the middle of September.

I had no clue what to do next. I really didn’t. It felt like everything I tried with this outfit was bound to fail miserably. But I still had to figure something out, and do it REALLY quickly, so I just decided to try on all the red and/or black blazers, coats, jackets and every possible type of outwear that I could find around the house.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to go that far. I came across this second-hand Chinese blazer/coat almost immediately, and man… that was a big surprise. I’d been in love with it since forever, but I had never had a chance to use it before. It looked totally awesome (I didn’t even care about it being slightly too big for me), it was right for the weather and it suddenly made my whole outfit look like it had been pulled straight from the 80s, It made me look like a prince; it made me look like the actual Prince (LOL). And everything was just perfect.

Everything… except for the fact that I still had no shoes on. I thought about putting my spiked creepers to use, but they looked a bit too gothic for my newfound new romantic vibe, and, most importantly, they were way TOO HOT. I needed something lighter. I thought about my Pons Quintana shoes (you might remember them from my last New Year’s Eve outfit) – the shoes I always pick when I want to look like a real gentleman ;)

They were definitely the most appropriate shoes I could think of, conceptually speaking, so it was clear I had to pick them. I already knew that walking long distances in them was not going to be a nice experience, but I had no choice, plus there was literally no time left for more changes.

At this point, all I had to do was adding some accessories to make the outfit complete. It’s not like there was a lot of room left for accessorizing, but I still wanted to add something like a bowtie or a dandy scarf, as the cherry on my Ruby Red gothic fairytale prince cake (LOL). I tried tying a cool bright red scarf in a bow around my neck, but it was way too short and it didn’t look natural. I was about to abandon the idea, when I thought about my good old Halloween skull tie. The concept seemed pretty gothic at first, but it looked quite amazing, once I tried it on, so I definitely was going to keep it.

After that, I only had enough time left to grab my bag and run out, just in time to catch the bus.

 

As I was running, I thought it was really funny that I had just come up with a baroque-inspired prince outfit in a completely unintentional way. After spending so much time trying to imagine baroque-ish looks for hypothetical band photoshoots (and failing LOL), it turned out it was just that easy. This look would definitely make for a Hell of a band photoshoot… and, in fact, I’ve already posted a few pics on my band’s Facebook page ^^

While I was on the train, it just occurred to me that I might actually be the only person in Barcelona wearing shoulder pads at that particular moment. For some reason, I found that thought really amusing (LOL). I have a thing for wearing ridiculously overdessed prince looks for ridiculously non-glamourous activities. I especially like to remember the time when I had lunch in McDonald’s on the way to the location of my classic labyrinth band photoshoot…. with my prince costume already on B)

On this occasion, my non-glamourous activities included shopping for sport clothing, buying ice-cream at a Russian groceries store (I fully succeeded at impressing cashiers LOL), running long distances trying to find an operative ATM, having deep socio-political conversations with street bums and eating pizza in a relatively modest Italian restaurant, surrounded by people in jeans and T-shirts (LOL).

Just like I had expected, walking in these shoes was a bit of a self-imposed torture. I ended up with some horrible blisters (I actually had to wait a few days until I could put the shoes on again for the photoshoot LOL), and my legs hurt for weeks afterwards just because of the tremendous amount of exercise I went through. Anyway, it was still worth it ;)

I had to shoot these pics in pretty adverse circumstances, as usual. Once again, the sun refused to show for days, so I just decided to go on and shoot, whatever the weather was. Surprisingly enough, the strange light turned out to be a bit of an unexpected gift, and the results were pretty amazing.

As you might have already noticed, I had to deal with some pretty heavy wind as well. It was a little bit of a problem, because I had to keep putting the hair away from my face, but, in the end, it created some really interesting pics :P

I love how some of these pictures ended up having a bit of a “Heaven and Hell” vibe: the leafless tree on the left (or the trash bag on the horizon with the menacing stormy sky LOL) versus the blossoming pink flowers on the right; the red and black versus the bright pink… It was all completely unintentional, but it looks really, really cool ^^

[Wiiiiind! ;)]

Shirt: MNG

Jeans: MNG

Shoes: Pons Quintana

Jacket: second-hand

Skull tie: custom