childlike enthusiasm

today i spent all day with the munchkins [my sister's kids]. i love all days spent with them. they allow me to be the big overgrown kid that i really am. i encountered on-the-street snaps of some nyc kids on sartorialist. the first thought that came to mind when i saw the little girl was: i was like her when i was young! i loved to match any colors that i was favoring at the moment, any crayon hue that i was really digging. i would match them with certain other colors from the box of 48 crayons [you know the enviable big box crayolas!] at one point, one of my favorite colors was a salmony pink, which i liked to pair with brown. at another point, i was really into gray and soft pink [i think the pink was called 'carnation.'] i kept drawing little grey mice with big pink ears and noses, over and over again, because i liked the color combination so much. i still like that combo, by the way! but i never liked red with green together - even to this day. like the girl below, i also liked to leave my hair unruly and wild .. i cringed [and actually cried] when my hair was twisted and formed into fish-braids, french braids, pig-tails and any other sorts of braids and tails by my mum .. who was of the philosophy that kids' hair should be kept out of their faces. sometimes, my older sister, who was always fashion-savvy, even as an elementary school kid, would tell me that i didn't match [i didn't .. often]. i guess i didn't really care because i knew what i liked, and it made me happy so .. that was that. in the back of my mind, i knew she was right, but .. i think my innate sense of rebellion and need for individuality kept my fashion quirkiness alive.

[photo from sartorialist]

i may be wrong, but i think this little fashion-savvy princess dressed herself in the morning, added the head scarf with as a last minute flourish, then stepped down the stairs of her brownstone with a skip, hop, jump and some 'tude to match .. all the way to school, where her friends oohed and aahed over her outfit .. to which, naturally, she shrugged her shoulders, smiled gleefully and moved on with her day.

this image makes me happy. to see the enthusiasm on her face makes me smile. to see that she chose deep purple and black as the base, then matched violet/blue tie-dyed tights and topped it all of with a purple head scarf is inspirational! i love kids. i love their un-self consious attitude toward life .. and design. whatever makes them happy matches.