Mrs. Franzos: 2021

How to Wear Your Summer Dress into the Fall

Thursday, October 14, 2021

I love it when it still feels like summer well into the fall. LOVE. IT. Gimme all the warmth and sunshine for as long as possible. I'm happy to say we've had our fair share of it here in Pittsburgh this year. I kind of wish it would last until January. But, and here's a huge admission on my part, I still like fall clothes. It's a weird time when you're still incorporating lighter summery things from your closet and shuffling in newer warm things you're longing to wear, but the morning are often cool, the afternoons, blistering hot, and the evenings cool again. It's best to dress in layers for the many heat levels of fall and here's how I styled one romantic vintage floral wrap dress I picked up from @Thriftwares on Instagram for those levels.

Look #1: Hot Fall

photo: Joshua Franzos

Hot Fall acts like summer in many ways. It's hot out. You're still sweaty. But it's past the autumnal equinox and the casual slip-on footwears of summer don't seem appropriate anymore, and it's just too hot for boots still. Maybe it's just me, but I find there's a certain gravitas to fall, probably because of years of starting school in September. Hot fall is the perfect time to wear those open-toe high heel sandals with your summer dress and feel like a grown up woman for a hot second.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Hot Fall is a good time to trade out your summer time straw bags for something leather, letting that be the only thing that hints at the cooler weather that is sure to come. It's also a fun time to think about accessorizing with jewelry again. With plunging necklines, I usually like to forgo necklaces and instead wear earrings that bring the gaze back up to my face. It's about balance.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Look #2: Fall Fall

photo: Joshua Franzos

Good news fall fans. Fall Fall is the 50-63 degree moment you've been waiting for. You can start bringing out the boots and other fall finery you've been dying to wear. You'll still find my summer dresses on rotation, only with frilly lace blouses layered underneath and tall boots.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Fall Fall has even more gravitas than Hot Fall, and though my boots and bag are classic examples of brown (embossed) crocodile leather, I opted for modern and untraditional sunglasses and jewelry with pops of neon to keep the look fun and from venturing too deep into "school marm territory."

photo: Joshua Franzos

Look #3: Cool Fall

photo: Joshua Franzos

Cool Fall. It may be in the high 30's and 40's but it's still warm enough to be stylish and wear that summer dress if you keep adding on the layers. For this look, I added a tie-neck blouse and a pleated midi skirt that peaks out from underneath the dress like a black petticoat. Add a hat, tights, and a slightly over-sized blazer for additional warmth. I'm also wearing OTK boots in a low kitten heel because it's starting to get slippery out and I can't teeter totter around on high heels on potentially slippery surfaces. That's how you break a hip.

photo: Joshua Franzos

It's difficult to see, but I accessorized this with a large, shiny vinyl clutch. I also layered a fun charm necklace I assembled on top of everything to keep this Tombstone-esque look, light-hearted. I'm your huckleberry.

photo: Joshua Franzos

This is the first time I've done a "three ways to wear" on the blog. The older I get, the more I want the items in my wardrobe to be more than one trick ponies. I much rather they were jacks-of-most-trades. The more ways I to style things, and wear them, the better. Let me know if you'd like to see more "three ways to wear" posts. If so, I may be happy to oblige you, m'am.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Your Bosom Friend in Pittsburgh,

Pleasures of the Damned

Friday, September 10, 2021

Meryl Franzos, boater hat outfit, Bukowski t-shirt

photo: Joshua Franzos

For the longest time, I couldn't tell you why the ice breaker question I dread the most is, "Tell me about yourself."

Under a stoic veneer is heart-racing panic. I shrink back into the liminal sidelines of anonymity. Who, me? I don't exist. I'm just a mutable enigma existing in the inbetween. Why would I think to define myself, when it's always been done for me?

My Grandmother is Japanese. My mother half. Me? As the apple is sliced, I should be 25%, but my DNA test insists that I'm 29%, and at least 1% Korean. 30% Asian in total, my genes were stacked in favor of my Asian ancestry and it shows on my face. White people have always stared. There was something about me they couldn't put their finger on, and their curiosity usually won out over their manners. "What are you?" As early as age six, I tried to explain, clumsily navigating the language of my identity with a first grade vocabulary. At first I was proud, then I grew to resent it when I wasn't Asian enough to call myself Asian with my Asian playmates, or when white people kept stumbling over the clues written on my face. Through their narrowed eyes, I knew. I didn't belong. From a distance I could pass as white, but under tough scrutiny, I didn't. "Oh, I thought you might be Mexican, or Italian, or Israeli, but you got some Jap in ya instead!" During my modeling years, I was often too ethnic for roles, or not ethnic enough. Too much or not enough, never "just right," like Goldilocks was rumored to say.

photo: Joshua Franzos

The year 2000 marked the first year the United States Census had a bi-racial check box. Before that I had to claim Asian or claim white, but certainly deny one part of my heritage. Different forms sometimes had an "other" check box. I often checked that because it was my only option. I was twenty years old in 2000, and by then, after years of not fitting into neat boxes and being constantly othered, the damage was already done. My race, my chameleon sense of style, even the values that might define my character were so fluid, I was practically water. Recently, I became agitated—but not surprised when I learned mixed race individuals often experience developmental delays in self identity. No wonder I've been farting around so long with fashion and how I could use it to help define myself. Funny how I chose a wordless language to try and communicate.

photo: Joshua Franzos

In 2019 a friend showed me an art book called, Part Asian, 100% Hapa. It featured Kip Fulbeck's portraits of multiply ethnic people that were at least a little bit Asian, and they called themselves Hapa—which is a Hawaiian term meaning a person of mixed ethnic ancestry. These beautiful and oddly familiar faces were celebrating their unique mix and embracing Hapa-ness. Though the book was not meant for me (it was meant for the awesome Hapa children of another dear friend,) tears lined my lower eyelids that day. Finally, there was a term, a two syllable word for what I was instead of a rambling dynastic prologue. And, I had a tribe. Not to name drop, but I have a friend with an ardent infatuation with Keanu Reeves. As I watch pictures of him float by in her stories, one day I smacked my forehead and laughed. Keanu! Our most famous fellow Hapa tribesman! Why have I never noticed it before? Goddam.

photo: Joshua Franzos

I'm not implying that everything became hunky-dory overnight once I learned I was Hapa. In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, Asian hate crimes and racism are at an all time high, and I'm still doing a lot of soul searching on what defines me, if only accepting that I may be indefinable. But even as late as November 2020, I was filling out a form for a state permit when I was informed that I couldn't be bi-racial, or Asian. I could only check: black, white, or unknown. Every option available to me was a lie. Instead of letting the racist ass form define me, I decided once and for all that forms are stupid and while their intent might be to impose imaginary limits, I won't let them anymore. Cue Whitney Houston's Greatest Love of All. (I'm not crying, you're crying.)

“invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don't swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can never categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Pleasures of the Damned

photo: Joshua Franzos

What I wore:

Hat: Boater, Bon Clic, Bon Genre

T-Shirt: The Avantehermetico Etsy Shop Bukowski Pleasures of the Damned

Paper clip necklace: Universal Thread, Target

Sword necklace:Marla Studio Gladius Sword in Bronze, 18" chain

Sunglasses: old Ray-Ban (this link is the cheapest new version, I could find $160 vs. $211)

Bag: Vintage Carlos Falchi butterfly bag in black python, bought from The Real Real

Lace mini: Forever 21 c/o Thred-UP

Gold boat shoes: Sperry. Now a collector's item. They haven't been re-issued in some time. There are still some sizes available on the internet if you dig for them.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Your Bosom Friend in Pittsburgh,

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

No Vacancy

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Photo: Joshua Franzos

Thanks to a year of working from home, my once rigid daily schedule is toast. I have new, bad habits--getting up a whole two hours later than I was previously. I have some new, good habits--though, nothing comes to mind. Regardless, there are patterns and behaviors that will be hard to shake, if and when we get back to "normal." And strangely, the thought of returning to normal has been panic inducing for me. Do I like working from home? Or do I just hate commuting more? Slow work periods at home often meant hours of uninterrupted writing which provided the luxury of looking at both the forest and the trees of my novel. Truthfully, this deep dive would not have been possible without our collective sojourn into COVID-19 isolation. However, the reduced socialization and the general monotony of day-in-day-out sameness has not done good things to my mental health. It's hard to know what to root for anymore, but the knowledge that my days of poring over my edit would come to an end in September 2021 haunted me.

I had to finish. If I couldn't cut the words and finish my novel during a pandemic, would I ever? I've been writing one book for nearly ten years.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Failure not being an option, I jettisoned the stuff that ate time and my limited quarantine energy (this blog, instagram posturing). I swiveled my full creative beam into the cutting of 39,054 words, yet keeping the story's core intact, but also stronger and better. It was a tall order, but I did it. I finished in July, and it only took three years and seven months.

The first time I finished my novel, the first draft mind you, was September 23, 2016. I was so excited and proud, I popped a bottle of Dom Perignon. Now, I roll my eyes because it's gone through so many edits and versions since then, I truly don't know what number pass I'm on. It doesn't matter. If what I'm told about literary agents and publishers is true, and I'm fortunate enough to land one, there will be many more edits and passes on my manuscript in the future. It's never ending.

Meryl Franzos, red wool hat, vintage bathroom photo shoot

photo: Joshua Franzos

Oh, and work informed us that October 2021 is the new tentative back-to-the-office date due to the continued viral spread of covid variants--also never-ending.

The point of all this is, for the first time in a long time, I'm not straddling the real world and a fictional world. As I look for an agent and busy myself with the administrative side of writing, my consciousness is popped up like a prairie dog on high alert. Anxious AF. Trying to prepare for winter and worst case scenarios. Worrying about catching Delta. Worried about accidentally spreading it. Checking my email every few minutes, hoping for responses from the umpteen agents I've queried. Each day that passes without a response, more cracks appear in my cuvee blend of hubris and optimism. The cracks widen and gape, and that's how The Fear gets in.

I want to be anywhere but this perpetual state of unknown.

Prevailing writer wisdom says to immediately start writing a new story. Or take a vacation. Anything, to get your mind out of the dark corners of your imagination. You know, the what-ifs and what-would-you-dos? The one niggling thought of the last literary agent on earth rejecting the book you'd spent ten years writing. What do you do with your life then?

photo: Joshua Franzos

Even though it seems like we're frozen in a catch 22--Time marches on, beholden to no one. So, in an effort to delay another existential crisis and alleviate some chronic cabin fever, we booked a vacation, and pretended for a little while that we had ninety-nine problems, but aging and the creative process wasn't one.