These past few weeks, I've had much less time to devote to the whimsy of fashion news. In fact, it only just hit me yesterday that NYFW is upon us. I haven't had time to fully delve into the goodness that is my Style.com iPhone app, but I checked out a couple of collections so that I could have something worthwhile to say here, without sounding completely unknowledgeable about the world around me. (Patrick Swayze died? What? RIP...) So let's just start with my fondness for Elise Overland, documented early in this blog.

I love leather. Always have, always will. Nothing says luxury fashion like "I killed a gaddam cow for this dress". Before I could afford real leather, I roughed it out with pleather -- a pair of boot-cut skin-tight pleather pants, a pleather A-line skirt. If you've worn pleather pants, you'll know why all this is a bad idea (HELLO SKIN RASH AND HEAT STROKE). Then, in some miracle of fate, I came across a silky smooth leather pencil skirt at the bebe outlet for US$29.99. SCORE. I still wear it today. So whenever a good piece of leather comes my way, in whatever the form, I melt. So you can imagine the puddle that I became upon sifting through this Elise Overland wonderfulness.

Oh, that full-on nude leather is simply killing me. The mock neck and the bunching around the shoulder/breast area is so well thought out. Something that looks awfully like the leather corset also needs to make its way into my closet, post-haste, for experimentation over black or grey wifebeaters. The black leather cocktail slipdress is a little more difficult to wear, but it's still yummy, and the conservative nun-like short-sleeved dress is a great combination of the prim and the biker. Just for good measure, I'm showing you this flashy minidress too. Why? Because it would look so ridiculous with a pair of leather leggings. ME-OW, Elise Overland.