portlandia

one super excellent thing about living in a west coast city is, well....

the proximity to other west coast cities!

i took advantage of this uh... advantage on wednesday, and did a quick trip to portland.

the excuse for the trip was for me to attend the northwest footwear materials show, which was an interesting chance for me to get to look at a lot of the materials that athletic shoes are made of. (being a fashion-oriented designer myself, some of these things were quite new to me. and quite inspiring!)

but, i also got to have some fun. not the least of which was running into a friend from high school (!) completely randomly. 

what luck!

the weather was characteristically rainy, so i decided against trying to shoot any street style photos. it's hard to get people to stop on the street to pose in a downpour. (and you know what? i don't really want to stop to shoot them!)

but that doesn't mean that i was not paying attention to portland style. and i do have something fun on which to report....

the portland black lipstick company makes lipsticks in a range of colors that are not typically easy to find:

turquoise, green, metallic blue, purple, silver, gold, black, grey and brown are all of some choices.

they're all 100% natural, and i'm sort of obsessed with their hippie-chic design, which calls to mind an old favorite:

truth be told- i am not a huge fan of the idea of black or turquoise lips, i have tried these highly pigmented tubes as eye liner, and they are the perfect thing to create a greasy, smokey eye.

i brought home "coffee, black" (a very dark brown) and "indigo bridge" and am now channeling kate moss, circa her close call with arrest on cocaine charges.

it's not so shocking that a cheeky, hippie, goth product line like this would come from portland. as we all know the dream of the 90's in alive in portland....

and although it's awesome weather kept me from proving to you that all of your favorite subcultural styles live on this little city..... i did manage to shoot one photo of an adorable girl who made me a delicious soy latte...

i don't know if she's wearing portland black lipstick co's lippie here, but i sure would't be surprised if she were....

how cute is she!?

adorable. 

thanks for the fun day, pdx!