Menswear for Women

I guess it is officially a trend now (?), but I am totally in love with this whole menswear-for-women thing that I've been seeing lately (especially at J.Crew). Now, I have to specify that I am in love with the formal aspect of it, rather than the casual. I love the idea of taking blazers and trousers that are normally very masculine looking and making them part of a really girly outfit. I am NOT in love with the idea of wearing giant, gross jeans and calling them "boyfriend jeans" when really you just look like you broke out your cargo pants from the nineties/from before you lost twenty pounds and rolled around in some paint. That is casual to the point where it just looks sloppy. But the whole I-borrowed-my-preppy-boyfriend's-trousers look is adorable.


That's not to say that I actually own anything that could be considered menswear, because I definitely don't. This is because, when I was somewhere between the ages of twelve and fifteen, I used to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, pulling my halfway-down-my-back hair away from my face and thinking, "I could totally be a boy." But then I would let my hair down and I was really obviously a girl. And then I would pull it back again, but let a few pieces fall forward, and that was also somehow feminine rather than masculine. Then I turned fifteen and cut all my hair off. The fact that I have been contemplating the fluidity of gender identity since the age of twelve just goes to show that Bryn Mawr is my perfect school, even though it sometimes makes me think I am going crazy.

But the point is, I've always felt like there was a lot of potential for me to kind of become a boy because I always thought I had a kind of androgynous face and rarely wore skirts or dresses and my best friends were boys more often than they were girls, so when I realized during my sophomore year at Bryn Mawr that I really want my life to be full of all things feminine, I felt the need to absolutely drown myself in them. I feel like, even if I could be a boy, why would I actually want to?! For example, I have only worn pants three times in the last two weeks: two of those times I was at work and I am not allowed to wear skirts there, and the other time was because it was so cold in the room I had to be in all day that I couldn't tolerate wearing a skirt. I still feel like a boy when I wear pants. But seeing how adorable this whole menswear thing is is making me want to incorporate it into my wardrobe (you know, if I magically won the lottery).


I really love this outfit, because even though the blazer is pretty masculine, I feel like the whole outfit together basically screams, "I AM A GIRL!!" especially with the giant necklaces and cashmere hoodie. The same thing is true I think for the first picture, and I think that the only real reason that I think menswear-for-women is adorable is because you can wear these super-masculine pieces of clothing and still make them girly and pretty and wonderful.

Also, María and I finalized our Philadelphia Restaurant Week schedule tonight (it's really two weeks), and it is going to be SO PERFECT. I'm going to bring my camera to all four restaurants and make María take pictures so that way she won't have to be in any of them, because she hates being in pictures. We are going to eat at a Mexican restaurant, a Peruvian restaurant (Peru has a lot of Asian immigrants, so the menu definitely shows that influence), an organic hippie-but-still-cute restaurant, and a French-inspired restaurant. I am beyond excited, even though we will both have no money left afterward. It will be totally worth it, just like the dream macarons!

Love, Jillian