Because having a brain doesn't mean you can't enjoy the frivolities of life
No, really. No more denim skirt purchases for a while. I am *fine* for denim skirts in various styles and shades.
Not even going to succumb if I stumble across yet another bargain.
Anyone else find they stumble across gluts of a particular item from time to time?
Ah, the joys of the seasonal transition. September so far seems to be shaping up to be true to its usual self. Just when I’d packed away the linen skirts, pulled out the winter weight skirts and trousers (which I’ve not been able to fit into in years – yay!) and put my shawl collection back on display in preparation for the Autumn, suddenly it’s sunny and warm enough that a cardi isn’t necessary for most of the day, never mind a jacket. I seem to perpetually have a brolly, some sunglasses, a cardigan and a pashmina in tow, whatever the season, though, so while I’m keen to snuggle into my long-stored tweedy trousers and woolly jumpers I’ll just have to layer up along with the rest of the world until the weather decides that that is the way forward.
My knitting mojo, after deserting me during warmer weather, has returned with a vengeance and I’m gazing at cardigan patterns with a Goldilocks eye and pronouncing this one too high necked, that one too swingy, this other just not right for any of the several yarns I’d like to use. My newly re-discovered figure is providing a slight ‘but how can I make sure it fits?’ worry, too, as I’ve been used to knitting garments that skim the body rather than fit to it, and while there’s much to be said for a snuggly, skimming cardi I’ve the confidence now to do fitted as well. Perhaps I need to pull out my calculator and my Barbara Walker, grit my teeth and dive into the world of creating my very own garment from scratch?
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On another note, the lovely Heather of 365 Days Of Style has put together a collection of definitions of style from the style blogging world. It’s a really interesting set of thoughts – one thing which really stood out for me was just how many women stressed that style is very much a personal thing, not something which can be achieved through prescriptive dressing and the slavish following of rules. I’ve added my two penn’orth – go take a look!
Oops. I didn’t realise until I came to upload today’s images that I’d managed to lop off my Ruby Shoesday red shoes in them. D’oh! You’ll just have to imagine them and I’ll just quietly consider it an interesting exercise in how much stumpier I seem to look without my feet.
Today was a long weekend in much of these islands, so no post yesterday as I was having a lazy Bank Holiday Monday of doing an awful lot of Not Work. Today was therefore my Monday, sartorially speaking, and thus you have a comfy jeans and flats outfit to view. It’s nice to have the type of job where I can dress in a way that suits these types of moods instead of having to be ‘on’ when I’m feeling more ‘warming up’. I do find, though, that as a result of the casualness that prompts I slightly miss the sharper tweed-pencil-skirt-and-boots outfits I used to wear a job or two ago but which have felt a bit too out of place where I am now. I still think I have it better overall, but I have had to encourage the creativity in me and develop a ‘sod it’ attitude to appearing more smartly dressed than all but two of my colleagues. Maybe I should take that further and treat my scruffier colleagues to that tweed pencil skirt (now that it fits again!) anyway this winter, when the fancy takes me.
August might still have a few days left to run but Mother Nature seems to have decided that it’s very definitely Autumn, with all the soggy conditions and decreased temperature that entails. I’ve been thinking for a while now that it makes sense to start building up the Autumn/Winter collection, and today’s rummage for jackets and suitable between-seasons layers confirmed it. My shopping list at the moment includes: that leather jacket I mentioned yesterday, some jeans that are a better fit, dresses (I find dresses easier to do in Autumn/Winter, somehow, when I can layer them up with boots and cardis), more cardigans, and despite having several pairs of boots it seems I still have a need (Not a want, of course. Goodness, no. An actual need. Er.) for at least two more pairs.
What’s on your shopping list for the forthcoming season?
I used to wear this lovely shade of blue a huge amount more than I do now – this is an old cardi and top that I’ve dredged out from when I was last this size (isn’t that a nice feeling? the getting-back-into-something-you-used-to-love?). I remember a lady in my first office saying that I was to pale blue what she was to red – and oh my, she wore a lot of red – I daresay she’d be surprised to see me in so much red myself these days.
It’s not that I’d gone off this shade of blue, it’s more that I’ve a better idea of what suits me now than I did years ago and so have greater confidence and room for more colours in my life overall. I gravitate to reds, blues and browns in particular, but there’s a place for greens as well. I imagine we’ll start seeing richer, autumnal tones in the shops soon, too, at which point I hope to reduce the Purple Things gap in my wardrobe.
But first, I have shrunk out of my black leather jacket and will need a not-brown replacement. Let me know if you spot a red, teal or purple one going begging somewhere…
Well, it took me long enough but I finally thrifted a top in a shade of red which works for me – and as an added bonus, I can swap the ribbon out for something else when I fancy a change.
It’s interesting, really. I’ve been buying clothes from eBay and charity shops for years now, but a few years ago if I’d felt the need of, say, A Red Top I would have just wandered to the high street and got one more or less straight away. Now, my shopping brain works differently. My impatience is being curbed (to be fair, increasing age and taking up knitting again probably also help on that front!). Since it’s not a particularly urgent need, ‘Red Top’ is just added to the list of things for which I keep an eye out when browsing second hand venues. I won’t just buy a random red top for the sake of filling the wardrobe gap as I used to- I’ll wait until I finally find something that I like and that is good quality and a reasonable price before shelling out.
That’s not to say I never buy things full price any more – of course I do. Lingerie for starters 
Underwear aside, though, jeans that fit seem to be especially hard to find second hand, and I haven’t magically become immune to the high street’s charms. If, too, there’s something that for some reason I need quickly (rarely the case, but we’ve all had funerals to attend or a pair of shoes break while we’re out and about) or there’s something that I’ve wanted/needed for a while and just found impossible to find second hand I’ll hit the shops in person. But even there, thanks to the bargains I’ve had shopping second hand, I’m used to either paying less or getting better quality for my money and I’ll pay full price only if I’m absolutely sure of the quality, function and, well, desire for the item. Similarly, my attempts at clothes making have taught me to scrutinise seams, my knitting has given me an appreciation for the benefits of natural fibres, and my mother’s training has had me inspecting washing instructions since I was a teenager – very few ‘dry clean only’ items in my wardrobe. There aren’t even that many that need ironing
I’ve become, by adding blogging and hobbies to upbringing, a more discerning shopper even before I factor in ‘yes, but will it suit me? and what will I wear it with?’, which I also ask myself before purchasing. I don’t really do impulse buys these days – there’s room for me to fall in love with things, but if I do I’ll buy it only if it fits all of the above criteria and there’s room in my budget (which is pretty strict). My wardrobe is expanding by the week, but I almost never buy something which disappoints when I get it home or really needs me to buy something else in order to actually wear it. Gradually, I’m building a wardrobe which works and which makes me happy rather than one which hides the real me and draws my attention to my own worst attributes.
Is a good thing.
I always seem to reach for the comfier, easier, jeans-based outfits on Mondays. Not that I don’t wear jeans a fair amount anyway, but there’s something about the first day back after a weekend that makes me less likely to reach for anything other than a trusted silhouette formed by comfortable fabrics. It doesn’t really involve any less thought (I’m not one of the super-organised types that lays out their outfits for the week in advance, but I do tend to have a quick ‘hmm, what shall I wear tomorrow? yep, that’ll do’ ponder the night before), but it means that I’m just that tiny bit more cocooned as I tip myself back out into rush hour traffic and then as I attempt to decipher the almost inevitable emails from on high which have appeared in my inbox since Thursday.
What about you? Do you ease yourself into the week with an extra comfy Monday ensemble or, as Lori Smith suggests, do you wear something extra fabulous so you feel amazing all day?
Jeans: TopShop. T-shirt: Next. Necklace: by me. Everything else: thrifted.
A late update today, and I’m a sleepy person so a little short on words. And maybe also cardigans – every time this sort of seasonal transition rolls around I feel like I don’t have enough of them. I have a whole drawer full, of course, and that’s not counting the thicker depths-of-winter cardigans which are stored elsewhere until they’re needed. But I wear them so much that it still never seems quite enough cardi.
‘m going to have to learn to knit faster.
It’s still warmish, and out of the window at the moment I can see, over the tops of houses, a glorious meadow bathed in the most beautiful summer evening sunshine.
But the Autumnal chill has begun to make its presence felt, and so today marks the official First Wearing Of The Handknits of this Autumn/Winter period. Granted, it’s an openwork shrug rather than a kid classic sweater, but it involves wool and so is several times warmer than my little cotton cardis. Looks like I might be taking my shawl collection out of its Summer home sometime in the not too distant future.
Shrug: Retro Redux Shrug, knitted in SWTC Karaoke. Jeans: Topshop. Everything else: thrifted.
A comment I saw when wandering around the internet earlier (What? You’re telling me that’s not what you lot do with your lunch/tea/coffee breaks at work?) got me thinking. The person in question was talking about how they wished they had more of a typical model figure instead of a more voluptuous one. They wanted a small bust, lean hips, broad shoulders, a totally fat-free stomach and uber-slim legs, because clothes would hang better and they’d, well, just look better, in their eyes.
It made me sad, as it always is when someone has such a fervent desire to own a body shape that genetics will always deny them (Seriously, ladies, there is beauty in ever body shape. Every one.). And it got me thinking. I’ve certainly desired to be slimmer in my life, but I’ve never aspired to that particular brand of very slim, straight, toned-to-tautness figure. Oh, I certainly won’t complain if a flat stomach results from my yoga – but I’m neither desiring it nor, frankly, expecting it. I want increased health, strength and that wonderful stretched-out feeling that comes from exercise and yes, a little tone. But I don’t particularly want there to be less of me, and I’m not going to be desperately trying to find exercises to whittle away a tummy.
Thinking back to when I was a girl, before I really had a figure to speak of and when I was in my teens when I had one but was convinced that I didn’t, the well-known women I admired were a different breed. Marilyn Monroe – who could be more va-va-voom? Madonna – 80s and 90s Madonna, who was buxom and toned but not quite in possession of those extraordinary biceps just yet. Even Cindy Crawford – a model, yes, and slim, but a visibly fit, healthy, curvaceous woman still. I always, now that I think about it, admired and wanted curves, nous and strength of character (Did Marilyn have those? I’m inclined to think so, from what little we can possibly know of her. She seems like a lady who really knew people, though one who would maybe do better emotionally in this time than in her own.). I wonder where the comparable role models for young teenagers are now? Do they have the same smart women with healthy figures to look up to now?
Thinking further, when I’ve wanted to be slimmer and felt less attractive larger, I’ve realised that it’s because as well as beating myself up for the bad habits that caused the weight gain, it’s because I felt less curvy. I gain my weight on my torso and felt that not only was I not feeling my best because I’d got into some unhealthy habits, but I’d been and gone and obscured my figure as well. I missed my curves, which are all I ever really wanted from my adult figure when I was a girl.
I just wish I’d realised sooner that I already had ‘em.
