Neat street: Pedaling into spring, North Portland style
March 7, 2010 by karenvitt
Filed under Neat STREET
A cold, grey front may be moving back in, but spring sprang in Portland for one glorious Saturday, when gals about town tucked flowers behind their ears, hopped on their bikes and pedaled fast to catch the sun.
Anya Hankin was one such pretty pedaler, who we found moving at fast clip in a blur of blue up North Russell Street and onto Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. We finally caught up with Hankin oustide the Nike Factory Store to ask about her blue helmet, blue bike and blue dress combo – and to ask if it’s difficult to ride in Frye harness boots.
Hankin, a graduate student studying conflict resolution at Portland State University, removed her bright blue multi-sport Bell helmet (which she bought at Bike Gallery in downtown Portland) to reveal a red silk flower nestled into her dark, curly hair. She told us she had no conflicts to resolve this day – her boots were comfy, she’d spent the day lunching and planting seeds in her garden bed, and now she was enjoying a fair-weather bike ride to see her friend’s new baby.
Hankin said she bought everything she was wearing locally (except her trusty bike itself, which she snatched up for $100 in Eugene about eight years ago), and when the weather’s warm she typically has a rotation of different silk flowers in her hair. “Most of my wardrobe and accessories are from used clothing stores, or collected from an assortment of vintage shops or friends’ closets,” she said.
This brilliant day with temps in the mid-60s, she wore a playful Halogen sun dress (a Nordstrom house brand) that she found at Buffalo Exchange, and she paired it with layers of silvery necklaces and a bright coral beaded bracelet that popped against the blue, and coincidentally matched her bike lock beautifully. The bracelet was a gift from her dad, and she made two of her three necklaces.
“Accessories are important to my personal style,” Hankin said. “Especially big, interesting earrings that can still be seen amid my mass of curly hair. I tend to choose bigger pieces – large flowers behind my ear, chunky bracelets that I wear up by my elbow, necklaces with multiple strands of beads. Same with rings, I guess. I love bigger jewelry. And I really love to mix and match pieces.”
This day she mixed and matched a long silver heart necklace she made herself with another chain holding an old key that belonged to her great grandmother, who used it to lock a trunk she brought to the states when she came over from Vienna. She added yet another long necklace with an amber stone she got at a friend’s naked lady party, and two rings: a sparkly antiqued silver ring from Rerun, and a gorgeous wire-wrapped stone ring by an unknown local artist, which she picked up at In Other Words Women’s Books on Northeast Killingsworth Street.
“I absolutely love the stories that accompany the jewelry,” she said. “Knowing that each piece has been on some unique journey – it’s kind of amazing to me.”
