Style – Gretchen Loves Anchorage

Alaska Wedding Collective

Five+ years ago my husband and I said “I do.” Our wedding was ridiculously fun and involved a lot of DIY (my maid of honor and her family actually BUILT US A WEDDING WALL complete with photos of our parents and grandparents on their wedding days and my mom made my wedding skirt) and pitching in by family and friends. Of course, plenty of wedding vendors were part of the day as well (favorites were Riza Brown and Josh Martinez, then of Chugach Peaks Photography) and I was lucky to find them (and would choose them 96,797,098,908 times over) during a time when Anchorage event planning felt fairly dated.

Since then, our local wedding scene has exploded with new wedding vendors, offering couples a seemingly endless array of options to create special occasions that effortlessly emphasize their personalities. On February 14, many of them displayed their talents at the Alaska Wedding Collective, an event offering interactive “action stations” to provide a truly special experience for attendees. Although my marrying days are long behind me I enjoyed every moment, probably because the evening felt more like a fun party than a wedding show.

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Love Note: Her Tern Sales

Ah, the few days a year when Her Tern slashes the prices on their insanely beautiful, handmade shoes and you (meaning me) can justify purchasing a pair. The sale is today through Sunday, and also includes summer dresses, cozy coats, cool girl tunics, graphic t-shirts and more. I’ve scored some of my favorite pieces at Her Tern sales, always marveling and the deep discounts and my luck in finding just the right thing.

Skinny Raven is also having a sale that’s bound to include some incredible deals.

Go forth and shop!

Best in Boots, Best in Fun!

The Skinny Raven Best in Boots fashion show should have been part of my hottest tickets in town post… except that THIS year, I scored a ticket! And boy oh boy, it did not disappoint!

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Finding my style (aka the style search concludes!)

Anchorage is full of insanely stylish people who have a rich, unique, nuanced approach to fashion in Alaska. I didn’t have to search hard to find style – it’s everywhere.

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Style Lessons Learned

When I started this project, Fernanda Conrad, blogger extraordinaire and author of countless Wardrobe Wednesday posts, told me “There’s only one rule: have fun.”

I tried to remember her words during the few times I shared my outfits. It was hard to have fun sometimes – just look at those outtakes! For every even remotely okay photo (which were few and far between) there were forty+ gems like the ones above (and I’m not even sharing the worst ones).

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Anchortown Style, by Alyssa

“Can I first start off by saying we as Alaskans are fabulous! Not only do we have a diverse sense of fashion ranging across the state… we get the benefit of dressing “down” while supporting our local industries. By dressing down I refer to Carhartts, Xtratufs, and camo on the weekends on our family hunting/camping trip and no ones judging us because we’re just being Alaskan! I love that as an Alaskan woman I get to wear my knee-high leather boots and stilettos all week in my professional work setting then, get to slip on my Xtratufs to head down to Kenai for the weekend festivities.

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Anchortown Style, by Penny

“I would describe fashion in Anchorage as casual, chic and sensible! The climate and environment effects what ‘style’ is in Anchorage. In many other cities, it’s easier to wear fashionable clothing whatever the time of year. In fact, most people wear North Face or Patagonia down jackets because it’s trendy, not because the 40-degree winter weather calls for it. In Anchorage, you wear down jackets because you’ll freeze if you don’t. You wear knee high boots with jeans or a nice skirt because your legs might fall off otherwise.

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Anchortown Style, by Amber

“As an Alaskan girl I have the urge to wear UGG boots and a North Face vest 300 days out of the year (and I’m sure most have been in my shoes at some point); the other 65 days are dedicated to Extra tuffs and flannel button ups. Not to say this look isn’t adorable or extremely comfortable, it just doesn’t fit the part for every occasion. There are a few simple and basic things you can do to add style and class to your everyday wardrobe: when you add the wool mittens with the exposable finger tips and the headband, you have the look to kill and it’s simple to leave the house feeling and looking on point.

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Anchortown Style, by Riza

“Fashion, to me, is like the waxing and waning of a fickle moon. I don’t pay much attention to it until full moon craziness ensues. Fake-n-bake skin, those shoes with the fishbowls in the heels and excessively bedazzled jeans are just a few examples. Now style – that’s something completely different. Style is innate and individual and unique. What looks great on one person will look dismal on another. And style changes to reflect many things; moods, circumstances, location and age.

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Anchortown Style, by David

“We live in a come as you are world. This is even more true in Anchorage. The city and its inhabitants are often underestimated. Partly because of the misconceptions that people have when they hear the word style. The worst misconception is that style, in some way, equals vanity.

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