Fashion

STARtoralist: Your New Favorite Fashion Blog

by Arielle Dachille

Looking to fall down the internet rabbit hole with a new Tumblr obsession? I've got just the thing for you. STARtorialist is an astronomy fashion blog that will allow you to gush over gorgeous threads and teach you a thing or two about the heavens along the way. Not to mention, it potentially has the punniest name in the history of fashion blogs.

STARtorialist catalogues examples of the intergalactic fashion trend and gives them scientific context by listing the technical details of each piece. PhD. astronomers Emily L. Rice and Summer Ash created the blog after noticing a theme of stars in apparel, from runway collections to e-commerce outlets to classic retail. From the galaxy-print leggings at Black Milk, to Valentino's pre-Fall 2015 collection, images of the stars are everywhere in fashion. Rice and Ash, however, are delving further into the underpinning of the trend in hopes of teaching people something about what they're wearing. "Our aim is not to make the entire world scientists or astronomers," Ash said, "but sort of appreciate the world around you, the universe around you."

When possible, Dr. Rice and Dr. Ash list the galaxy, the age, and astronomical significance of the pieces on their blog. "People are aware that there’s sort of a galaxy theme out there that sometimes are real images and sometimes they’re just artistic renditions," Emily told The Daily Dot, "I don’t think people are aware of the extent of it and how much that expands into all different types of product lines." While labels won't generally consult astronomers if they happen to be doing a galaxy-themed collection, Ash and Rice point out that it would be a fantastic idea to do so. After all, if you're incorporating science into art, you might as well give yourself a little science lesson along the way.

The blog also highlights the work of Rice and Ash's fellow astronomers, which is amazingly cool. By doing this, they're enlightening laypeople (like myself) to groundbreaking work in science, which they may have otherwise not known about. Furthermore, it's always important to help people appreciate the underlying ideas of a trend. These are the moments in which the Internet is an endless and generative well of knowledge — a place where minds meet for the better. Plus, the Internet is also a place where you can buy dresses printed like the moon, which is always a great thing.

Image: Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center/ Flickr