Category — AsianCajun Style

For the past month Lar and I have been meaning to enter in Atlanta Magazine’s Head to Toe contest. The only problem? We don’t have any recent photos of us together. Lucky for us, my bf is something of a Renaissance man: musician, photographer and photoshopper extraordinaire.

We spent Saturday afternoon in the million degree heat trying to find good spots for photos. Here we are unintentionally posing as an updated version of American Gothic at Leon’s. Lar is wearing her gorgeous secondhand silk shirt with a necklace her bf got her from Snoozer Loser. I’m wearing a summer dress from Kaleidoscope Boutique with a Rodarte for Target cardi and Forever 21 sunglasses.

Even before we started taking photos, my bf had the brilliant idea to do a reflection shot made possible with some Photoshop magic.

The contest voting seems to be a bit wonky (everyone has very low scores), but if you could vote for us on Atlanta Magazine’s site we would be forever grateful. Thank you to everyone who has already voted! Also, let us know if you enter and we’ll vote for you too! The contest ends on July 31st.

Cath and I are sooo excited! We get to be part of The Society Stylist’s Little Black Dress Experiment! What is that? Well, check out Valerie Elizabeth’s Dress Diaries from last August here. She wore the same Ann Taylor LBD 31 different ways during the month of August.

This year, Valerie Elizabeth and her crew have asked 31 fashion bloggers from around the nation to be part of her experiment. A different blogger wears the Ann Taylor black dress each day during the month of August.

We’re not sure which day Cath and I will be posting in August, but we’ll make sure it will be up on AsianCajuns as well as the Society Stylist. Anddd…. there will be a way for you guys to enter your own LBD photos and win some goodies! Details forthcoming.

Happy Monday! We hope you all had a lovely weekend and that this day slips by painlessly.

We are July 1st bebes! So we hope you guys are having a great day too as we commemorate the moment 27 years ago when the doctor said “oh my god, there’s another one.”

Cath is on the left, I’m on the right. We’ve always been really into licking the icing off of candles. We also happen to be wearing rompers and blunt cut bangs in this photo- just 23 years ahead of the trend.

Happy July 1st, Lovely Readers!!!

Decoupage wall art of Frida by Ana Maria Gonzalez from Mexico.

A few months ago, Cath and I got this really sweet email from Novica; an online shop in association with National Geographic that sells gorgeous wares from artisans around the world.

We get a handful of emails everyday with “special deals” or “VIP information” but we rarely pay too much attention to them. If someone sends us an impersonal promotional email or even a freebie, we don’t just automatically snap it up in our greedy little blogger mouths. We have to like it, and we have to think you guys will find it interesting too.

In the case of Novica, we really like what they do. Not only do they represent artisans from around the world and offer a vast variety of beautiful hand-crafted products (from furniture to jewelry), but they also support microfinance loans. Hillary Clinton is for them, Madeleine Albright is for them, and they have the potential to pull families around the world out of poverty.

Even if you aren’t sure about getting involved in a microfinance loan (read more about them here and here), just shopping for yourself supports an artisan from Mexico or Bali or Thailand or West Africa… The prices are super-reasonable and the products are one-of-a-kind.

Leather bracelet by Khun Boom in Thailand ($31.49).

Turquoise necklace by Nareerat in Thailand ($37.95).

Batik scarf by Yuna Kristina from Bali and Java ($39.98).

I love it when my consumerism gets the better of me and it ends up supporting artists that live in far-flung places. It makes me feel like maybe the big bad consumerism monster isn’t always so bad after all. What do you guys say? Would knowing that you are getting something beautiful and supporting global artists motivate you to shop at a site like Novica more than say picking up another overpriced accessory at Urban Outfitters?

Hiya Lovely Readers! Huge apologies for being so MIA lately (especially, me). Cath has had to soldier on without me these last two weeks because I’ve been battling pneumonia. I think I’m finally reaching the very end of it- just in time for us to move apartments!

Cath and I live together now, but we’ll actually be going our separate ways for the first time in 7 years! We’ll still live about a five minute drive away from each other, but it’s kind of a big change for both of us.

And speaking of changes… I’ve rebranded AsianCajuns (again!). It’s kind of what I do for a living, and an itch that had to be scratched. So in the coming weeks you’ll see a new logo, new business cards, and… a new website! The logo (see above) is a little more exciting (I over did it with the minimal helvetica-look for the past few years), but the new site will still be streamlined and clean… and hopefully an even better platform from which we can launch all kinds of AsianCajun goodness.

Thank you for your patience, wonderful readers! We’ll come back, guns blazing, come June. In the meantime, we’ll be pushing heavy boxes around and trying not to wheeze too much. Wish us luck- and let us know how you’re doing! We’ll be in touch soon!

(Below is sneak peek at the back of the new AC bizcards- let us know what you think).

The shoe:

Cath and I mentioned Bensimon shoes over two years ago on AsianCajuns when they came stateside. You can now get them online at Shopbop and Moxsie and at Madewell.

Notice the lack of a heel.

You know Cath and I favor tall shoes. Me especially. My tallest are close to 6 inches, the shortest roughly 2.5 inches (not including necessary flipflops, etc.). We wear them because of our petite stature, but also I love the way they look. I can’t get excited about buying flats.

That said, I can’t walk miles in those gorgeous wooden/leather skyscrappers. So I’m trying to convince myself that I like ranch houses.

Ladies, which do you prefer for yourselves (flats vs. heels) and why? Gents, aren’t you glad that you no longer have to wear heels?

ps- Thanks for all the lovely comments about the art history/photography post!

We ate ramen (real ramen!) on Sunday and Cath and I ended up wearing very similar necklaces to the restaurant although we got dressed in two separate locations without previous consultation. It’s a twin thing I ‘pose. Oh, and it also might have to do with the fact that we went shopping at Rockit Boutique together and bought said necklaces on the previous Friday (see Cath’s above).

White tees, black jackets and clear bauble necklaces. Great minds think alike (or two minds think alike, especially when they’ve rarely been separated since birth).

Oh nom nom nom… delicious ramen from Umaido in Suwanee, Georgia. The only ramen-ya in the Atlanta area! I first heard about it through The Blissful Glutton and Chowdown Atlanta (we have some wonderful foodie bloggers in the ATL). Both lovely ladies give excellent reviews of Umaido, so read their posts for deletable details.

The bf and I slurrrrrping.

I traveled up to the wilds of Suwanee, Georgia with this rowdy gang: my bf, Emily, Adam, Troy (eating a giant pair of door handle chopsticks) and Cath.

To wrap up the day we stopped my the local H Mart next door and drooled over the mochi aisle. Nom nom nom…(all this inarticulate “nom”-ing and drooling is why I could never be a good food blogger).

Happy weekend, Everyone! We hope you all are enjoying lovely springtime weather (sans the allergies)! What are plans? Do tell!

So the other week when Cath was in New York she was a sweet heart and bought us matching (yes, matching!) Uniqlo sweaters. I haven’t had the pleasure of going into a Uniqlo store, but I’m been wanting to since it opened up north. This is definitely the next best thing! It also gives us the perfect opportunity to do another “The Same Thing Worn Differently… by the AsianCajuns” segment (we are working on that name).

Here’s Cath’s take (and my personal favorite):

Looking very Frenchie with my old H&M trench coat to keep her dry.

I love how she layered all her bright royal blues together. She was worried she looked smurfy- I think she just looks divine.

The necklace she’s wearing (yet another present she gave me after a business trip) is from Sarah Jessica Parker’s now defunct Bitten line. Was anyone else a fan? The price-points were amazing, the clothes were generally better made than most things you can pick up at the mall, and the designs were classic, but cute, not stogy.

I paired by blue sweater with black Blank cords, a DIY studded tee,  a Proenza Schouler for Target scarf and Asos boots.

The red plastic ring is shaped in the silhouette of a diamond ring– my kind of jewelry! Once again, Cath got it for me as a present from another NYC trip. This is from the MoMA store -le swoon. If I were Capote I would have called it “Breakfast at MoMA.” It’s definitely a place where “me and things go together.”

I tied the sweater in the front. Cath tied her’s in the back (see the top pic).

We hope you guys have a wonderful weekend!!! What do you have in store?

xoxo, Lar

Cath and I have repeatedly babbled alluded to our love of Scotland in previous posts. We don’t even have a drop of Scottish blood in us (Irish, English, French, Danish, German, Chinese but no Scottish). Our Scot-o-phile-ness stems from living/studying in Edinburgh and traveling around Scotland for six months back in 2004.

We haven’t been back for – eesh! – six years, but Cath and I always say we would move there in a heartbeat given the opportunity.

One way for us to maintain our connection to our Scottish “roots” is to celebrate Robert Burns Night every January 25. Who is/was Robert Burns, you ask?! Why he was the fellow who wrote “My love is like a red, red rose…” and “Auld Lang Syne”- so in a nutshell he is a famous Scottish poet from the 19th century.

And how does one celebrate Robert Burns Night? By drinking whiskey, eating haggis (it’s really good, I swear!) and attending a (digital) ceilidh (pronounced “kay-lee”). Here we are at the ceilidh doing a traditional Scottish jig in traditional Scottish tartan (click here to see us “dance”!):

Cheesy, we know. We thank you for sticking with us, lovely readers, through our fashion loves and more eccentric tastes.

Ahh the winter staple, our good friends black leggings and black blazer. Black shirt is there too, cozying up to black scarf and gazing down at black boots. We love you black, but lately we feel like we are cheating the rest of the color wheel.

Cath is showing you how to avoid black in your outerwear–and in interior decor (that’s a bit of kitchen and dining room behind her).

She is wearing black gloves and a scarf, but I think the burst of red in her coat totally overpowers it-in a good way. The gloves are thrifted, the hat is from our mom circa 1980-something, the coat is Nordstrom and the scarf is by (local Atlantans) We Are the Process.

I only own black coats and jackets, so I couldn’t do brilliantly colored outerwear like Cath. Instead I broke out my neglected Ramona West dress. (Have you guys been to the Ramona West online shop? She has the best selection of vintage dresses and outerwear- and sells out of nearly everything right after it’s posted). I love how bright red/orange it is- it’s nearly neon.

I toned down the brightness of the red/orange with an olive color shirt (H&M), beige fringe scarf (H&M), brown tights (forget where!) and brown boots (about 7 years old from AE).

How many of you are guilty of the black uniform? How do you work on injecting more color into your closet and outfits?

We hope you guys have a wonderful, wonderful weekend! Cath and I will be pitching in at our local Martin Luther King Jr. Service Project. We hope to see some of you locals there!

We’ll also be donating to CARE and/or Red Cross this weekend. Our hearts and prayers go out to the earthquake survivors in Haiti. If you guys have any other secure organizations you know of that are helping out, please feel free to leave them in the comments section and we’ll post them here!

Updates:
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
Check the Women for Women International page for their donation suggestions