Watch Out Anna Wintour...

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~Cecil Beaton [on fashion]

Clare has shown great interest in skirts and dresses lately.  In fact, I've had to hide one or two skirts in particular from her because when she sees them, she grunts like a mad woman until I alter her outfit to include said skirt.  If they are dirty or it is cold out and I refuse to allow her to wear them she becomes very upset.  I appreciate her unique tastes and encourage her to choose the things she likes, but on Friday, Clare took her adventurous fashion sense to a whole new level.

Clare did what any true artist does; she took an everyday household item and proceeded to turn it into what may be the next 'big thing' on the runway during fashion week.  By doing this, Clare has earned herself the title of "Fashionista" in our house and, let's face it, may have also earned herself the title of the newest (and youngest) fashion editor at Vogue (watch out Anna Wintour).

"This may look like a dog cone to you, but to me it's 'Fashion'"

"Don't you just love the adjustable waistband?"

Here it is from the back - it keeps it's shape beautifully

If one bends over while wearing this skirt, it can knock the air out of you, but this is fashion worth suffering for!

I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback when I realized Clare wanted to wear Munich's cone as a skirt, but then I figured that she couldn't possibly pick up any more germs doing this than she does when Munich does one of her famous, "walk-by face kisses", so I let my girl's imagination go wild.  Though there are only a few pictures, let me tell you, Clare rocked this "skirt" for about an hour.  She finally conceded and let me remove it when she realized that wearing it put some limitations on her ability to play with her toys (sitting is a challenge with this particular skirt design).

Sadly, Clare's fashion credibility was nearly lost when I came home from celebrating Mary's retirement (one of my co-workers at PL) last night, and saw what she and daddy had chosen for her jammies.  Now, I'm not a stickler for matching nightclothes - I mean...their whole purpose is to be worn when you sleep; BUT, Clare has some really cute matching sets.  I personally think that of all the challenges one faces when putting Clare down for the night, matching the pajama top to the bottom is one of the easiest to overcome (I fold them and place them TOGETHER in the bottom drawer - to make this especially easy).  Apparently, when Clare and daddy discussed the options in the jammie drawer, they "went rogue" and settled on this less conventional, mis-matched fashion forward outfit:

A little shy about her choices at first...

...but confident with her monkeys / snowman outfit after some thought

After seeing the above outfit, the one thing that is saving Clare's current title of Fashionista, besides the confidence she exudes when modeling her choices (as shown in the picture above), is the fact that when she's with daddy, all the "important" things like fashion take a backseat to some serious play time.  As a result, I place 100% of the blame for this fashion faux paus on what I will refer to as the "daddy distraction".