But Lilly. Oh, that Lilly Pulitzer! The furor! The (hilarious) outrage! Lilly Pulitzer, the late design queen of Palm Beach ladies who lunch, found her way into arms and shopping carts of women everywhere Sunday morning. Or at least, she was supposed to. The eagerly anticipated collection appeared online, had the Target site going kablooey by 3am and was entirely gone by 10am. 

This was the scene in good old Richmond, VA:

The things Southern girls do for @LillyPulitzer#LillyforTarget pic.twitter.com/PDA3ODCTWg

— michelle christine (@michelleox) April 19, 2015

If I had to hazard a guess, that’s the location on Staples Mill. (I recognize the parking lot. Don’t judge me.)  Richmond is exactly the type of city I would expect would go mad for Lilly and leave me with a fairly robust selection of Altuzarra, (Holla if you hear me clearance section!) but I didn’t expect my Lilly loving ladies to go QUITE this hard.

I can’t front. I DO NOT GET IT. I’m not a great Lilly Pulitzer fan myself but I don’t appreciate being robbed of my ability to get this (y’all know I’m a sucker for a jumpsuit!):

Did you go Lilly crazy? Did you try but get punked instead? Do you just NOT GET IT? Let me know in the comments!

The post Did You Go Lilly for Target CRAZY? appeared first on The Right Style.

Obama: “I have no more campaigns to run.”
Republicans: *applause*
All: *laughter*
Obama: “I know because I won both of them.”

But the real star of the night (for me, my mother and my sister, at least) was First Lady Michelle Obama’s fly suit. The grey, nubby suit was perfection on Mrs. Obama and seemed to be made to be worn by a powerful, self assured mother of two— gasp! I had seen that suit before! Michelle was channeling the other First Lady, Alicia Florrick.

Ok. Alicia, played by the luxuriously-browed Julianna Marguiles, is a fictional character. She lives inside of the television and fabulously-armed Michelle is a real person. But I insist that this was a coordinated plan to unify the strongest woman on TV with one of the strongest women in America. Sisters in Style. Michelle and Alicia forever.

Michelle Obama is on her Alicia Florrick tonight — and I am here for it. (cc: @emilynussbaum, @SPBVIP): pic.twitter.com/XL8wsMeBhq

— S. Alexander Smith (@SAlexanderPhD) January 21, 2015

I am in negotiations to have this suit, well the jacket, really, as my very own. You can match me and get the jacket here.*

*Update: It looks like the jacket has sold out in the 20 minutes since I started this post. I am actually crying real tears.

The post Michelle and Alicia: Sisters in SOTU Style appeared first on The Right Style.

I heard the news of Titi’s passing, an apparent suicide, via a middle of the night Facebook update. The Bloggers Like Me network  is a community of multicultural women throughout the country who share experiences and advice about life, business and of course, blogging. The BLM Facebook group is always a hot bed of activity and the news hit the group, some of whom are natural hair bloggers, pretty hard. She was someone who brought our beauty to the mainstream and helped to give women permission to love their hair. To me, the loss felt like another defeat.

Depression can be like a ghost. It follows you around, lurking in the shadows, hidden to everyone’s eyes but yours. Sometimes, it’s hard to acknowledge that what you feel is real and choose, instead, to keep it hidden, tucked out of sight, away from people’s prying eyes and solicitous questions. I know that feeling. I have been deep inside of that feeling. So when I hear about another celebrity suicide, another death of someone I admire, I hang my head and cry. Sometimes, it feels like the darkness always manages to win.

Fortunately, there is help available. If you or a loved one are struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at suicidepreventionlifeline.org or call them at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). People are there. Help is available.

Love and peace to the family of Titi Branch.

The post Another Again: Miss Jessie’s Titi Branch, Gone at 45 appeared first on The Right Style.

Carrie: How about I read you a little bit of my favorite poetry?
Aleksandr: Please.
Carrie: [reads from Vogue] “Cocktails at Tiffany’s calls for classic charm. Oscar de La Renta sleeveless silk full-skirted dress with black patent leather bow belt.” Now that is pure poetry.

Oscar was a man who let his work and his actions speak for themselves. Here he is presenting his 2012 Resort Collection within the walls of the largest bullfighting arena in the world, Plaza des Toros in Mexico City, Mexico.

OSCAR DE LA RENTA IN MEXICO CITY from Oscar de la Renta on Vimeo.

The post Farewell, Oscar. appeared first on The Right Style.

Disclaimer: This is not necessarily my usual fare. There is quite a bit of darkness in the news and I am ruminating about it quite a bit in this post. Style and fashion is part of life…and sometimes, death. These are my thoughts.

It’s been a difficult week for me. “What’s wrong?!” you may ask. Well, I’ve been watching the news. And reading the news. And, cringingly, logging onto Facebook. And Instagram. And Twitter. There is nothing on which to buoy, it seems. ISIS. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Ebola outbreaks like never before. The heinous murder of James Foley. And here at home, we have Michael Brown.

Michael Brown is not the first young man that we have lost in a police encounter gone horribly wrong but this incident, for me, like many others, struck a very particular chord. Ferguson is a situation that is quickly slipping out of control. I don’t have anything original to say, well nothing that bears repeating here, at least. Here, I’m going to be talking about the optics.

Black style has long been tied to revolutionary movements. From the Black Panthers’ para-military style, an ostentatious show of strength to the mainstreaming of Afrocentric clothing in the 90’s, the clothing of African America has always had a perspective.

I was a child in the 90’s and really started to come into my own style around 1993. I was into the oversized clothes and vibrant colors of TLC.

The post #BeBlack: The Politics of Style appeared first on The Right Style.