Alaska Fashion

What a day!! If you tried to visit Grechen’s Closet this morning, or anytime up until an hour or so ago, I’m sure you noticed it was DOWN. grechenscodes.com was down for a while this morning too…what a way to come home!! But all seems to be well now (fingers crossed), so here’s the post I was writing before everything went crazy!!!

Amazing. All I can say is that Alaska is amazing. And impossible to capture fully with photographs, which is not to say I didn’t try! I can’t think of a better place to have spent my first vacation in at least 7 years than Alaska. (I’m not really a beach kind of girl…too lazy for me)

I don’t have any outfit posts, because frankly I wore the same thing nearly everyday: jeans, sweater, jacket & Dansko clogs. I took three pairs of jeans with me (all Goldsign), JP long & short sleeve tees, a couple of Inhabit cashmere sweaters, my Madewell “army” jacket, a warm Marmot jacket, tennis shoes & Dansko Clogs. The Dansko’s were the smartest shoes to have in Alaska – I could swear 1 out of every 3 women there was wearing a pair, and they were incredibly practical for the rain & snow (and lots of walking). And my J.W. Hulme legacy bag was perfect for the trip – it withstood LOTS of rain very well!

As a side note, fashion in other parts of the country is always amazing to me. Alaska is all about practicality – the weather changes frequently there, so you have to always be prepared for rain. And it’s pretty cold most of the time, so the “uniform” was jeans, fleece jacket & clogs/tennis shoes. But I was also fascinated by the native fashions we saw at the Anchorage Museum – the Smithsonian curated an Arctic native peoples exhibit there and showcased some of the clothing. Granted, a lot of the featured pieces were ceremonial, but even the practical rain gear made out of seal stomach was slightly embellished with colorful thread & beads. Everyone everywhere wants to show their personality through their clothing; that’s how important fashion is.

And speaking of fashion – or not fashion as it were, here is a picture of my fiance, Leo and I on our first day in Alaska (I’m wearing my Madewell jacket). We were heading North out of Anchorage and stopped at Mirror Lake. Our first two days there were honestly very bleak – cold and rainy – but the last three were heavenly. Still cold, but so much sun!!

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing Mt Mckinley so clearly – which I’ve heard is rare:

I’ll post more pictures as the week goes on, but I’m glad to be back! I missed you guys 🙂