Popping In Briefly

yes, i'm still alive. My timing for taking a break was excellent, as mr. e and i are both under seige from a particularly evil virus. Instead of choosing to attack either the gastrointestinal system or the upper respiratory tract, this bug hits BOTH. Two days of 'mice having a circus in your guts' (mr. e), followed by your basic sino-sorethroat blow-out. Which is gross enough, but mr. e has a techy tummy and i'm prone to sinus infections, causing the whole sordid affair to linger indefinitely.....

I had a lot more fun a couple of weeks ago at a 'Ladies' Movie Night' hosted by ielgirl.  Food, romantic movie, drinks, dessert, and some very smart and realllllly funny ladies. Our hostess requested that we all wear our most romantic hats, so i trimmed up my straw one in pink and black. I really fancy the way it turned out and plan to leave it trimmed like this possibly through summer. If this event sounds fun to you, be aware that ilegirl is hosting a Fancy Pants Reuse Outing in Danville for April 2nd - Bay Area eccentrics, consider yourselves notified!

As you can imagine, having your brain slowly replaced by mucous does little to increase one's intellectual functioning...however, i have managed to do a little of the writing on high strange experiences i wanted to focus on during this break. I also managed to miss the fabulous Sheila's Leopard Week extravaganza - click here to get the scoop at the Leopard Week Wrap Up! Those ladies aren't the only busy bloggers out there - Allie of Wardrobe Oxygen has been posting some really helpful information the past few weeks - how to dress for the weekends, her 'eat your vegetables' philosophy of wardrobe building (a little like cake and frosting). But to top it all, Allie goes where no blogger has gone before and posts a complete list of her entire wardrobe! I find these type of posts really helpful, and really hard to write, so kudos to Allie!

I saw some long, twisted scarves of cotton gauze at J. Crew a while back and finally knew what to do with that cotton gauze in my stash. I checked out the RIT website for ideas on olive drab, and a few hours later i had a new scarf. It's soft and warm and i've3 been reaching for it constantly.I think of it as a 'statement scarf'. Wearing a new color, texture, size of scarf can really change the feel of your outfits, with such a small commitment of money, time, or commitment (you can take it off much more easily than, say, shoes or your blouse, at least in the circles in which most of us move).

Last but not least at all - i can't believe that people have actually decided to follow me while i'm on this hiatus! I so much appreciate all the people who take the time to read this blog and comment and follow. It is so much more fun to put these posts together thinking about the various 'pairs of eyes' that will take in my efforts - not to mention it makes me take it a bit more seriously. So THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! to all of my readers and commenters and followers, old and new!!!  In the past couple of weeks, i've started to feel that old compulsion to photograph my looks, so i expect you'll be seeing more of me sooner rather than later - in the meantime, take care and have fun!!!  steph

Style Insurance

This outfit really reminds me of Erin from Work With What You Got - not because of the way it looks, but in how it came together. The two main pieces (blouse and jeggings) are both off-the-rack items from Target's house brand. Now, when i think of places to shop where i'm likely to find pieces along my aesthetic, Target ain't the first retail establishment that comes to mind. Yet, i felt at ease in this look and it fit nicely inside my style spectrum.

Now, even nine months ago if you'd told me i'd be dressed head-to-toe in mass market off the rack pieces and like how i looked, "skeptical" would've covered my reaction. But here it had come to pass. Pondering how this could be, i boiled it down to two factors. One, i know my own style well enough to be able to pick items which either express my style or will work harmoniously with it (the neutral colors, the feminine-detailed voile blouse) without those items having been presented to me in the context of my own style. In other words, i have enough experience to see an item in, say, the Land's End catalog and recognize that it would really work for me - even though i personally find the Land's End aesthetic deadly boring and unattractive.  Two, accessories carry a lot of weight in any look. In this one especially the boots and belt really bring my 'Amelia Earhart' factor into the equation. Seriously, a pair of grey flats with bows on the toes and a little silver rhinestone belt would blend perfectly well with the blouse and jeggings. But that look wouldn't really come across as 'me'. Adding accessories that encapsulate and/or reflect your personal style to any run-of-the-mill look can turn a ho-hum base into an authentic expression of your style.

Erin seems to have a real talent for picking out just the right pieces that she can use to project her style, from even the most mundane of retailers (Target, Walmart, and so on). However, i have noticed that she seems to dig deeper in order to find those special pieces that finesse her looks (a wolf claw or hummingbird skull necklace from an etsy vendor, for example). Seeing as you can wear a good pair of boots for ten years or more, and jewelry lasts decades, it's a prudent strategy. Not to mention you can wear a trademark pendant, say, every day without causing comment - it's a different story with jeans or a sweater.

The older i've become (always a scary way to hear a sentence begin, no?) the more important i've found these two factors to be in building a reliable wardrobe.  It's FANTASTIC when you waltz into some new store and everything fits and flatters and goes together in just your own personal dream fantasy style, and it's all on sale and never needs dry cleaning or ironing.  (Well, i'm guessing it would be fantastic, it's never happened to me so i can't truly say.)  But over here in the real world you gotta deal with the hand you're dealt. Weird colors are the only thing in stock, clothes don't fit, money gets tight, your feet can't take heels......even if you make your own clothes, you have to make them out of the limited fabrics which are available.

Building a stock of accessories that you can rely on to bring your own personality to your outfits and being able to spot clothes that will work for you in even the most unlikely of places - both of these strategies help immeasurably in getting through style tight spots.

Grey Sweater: Tweeds
Blouse: Target Merona
Jeggings: Target
Belt: ??
Necklace: gift
Boots: Bass Lamont

No Repeats W & W: Days Fourteen & Fifteen

 So i bucked up and dealt with my clothing capsule boredom by making a species of suit (see above) and using accessories to bring color into a neutral look (see below).

For me, combining any type of blue with greys always brings out the blue in the grey, instead of toning down the blue.  So my outfit yesterday felt very 'blue' to me, even though only the legwarmers and scarf are blue. (And of course, the blues looked more blue in real life.....) Does it seem that way to any of you? Maybe it's because there's a blue briolette in the earrings, and i did wear a blue stone ring.

Photography conditions have been very trying recently. I actually woke up this morning, got into my clohtes from the day before, and re-shot this 'blue' outfit, because the shots from yesterday afternoon were so atrocious. Even so, dappled sunshine isn't the greatest for detailed depiction of costume.  But it's the best i could come up with!

This look was fun because it felt like i used the bare minimum of accessories in order to get the look across and make it interesting, without crossing the 'boring barrier'. I've had a good time skating towards the minimalistic end of my style spectrum, and i've been getting a lot of compliments, too. I think it makes my style more understandable without people needing to study it in depth beforehand.

So i finally get a decent pic of these earrings and my ear is blazing red. Just think of it as a festive holiday tribute to our favorite little reindeer. From top down that's a sterling acorn, a sterling and marcasite salamander, and my regular bird filigree and pearl (half of a pair - the others have become single over the years).

The past several years, Mr. E and i have made a tradition of going out to a swanky eatery around 5 or 6pm on New Year's Eve. That way we don't need to worry about reservations or getting a great seat, and if you keep ordering they don't kick you out. We tend to go to Cesar's on Shattuck in Berkeley, but tonite the hubby has scoped out a new tapas place in the Temescal neighborhood in Oakland. Yum!  I hope you all have a great, safe, non-hangover-inducing evening!  Best wishes to you and yours for the coming year!


Species of Suit:
Jacket, Skirt: own design
Black Sweater: Target
Leggings: Carushka
Shoes: Ariat
Belt: vintage Coach
Tiger-Stripe Socks, Lace Scarf, Jewelry: gifts


Blue or Grey?:
Grey Sweater: Tweeds
Ivory Sweater: Royal Robbins
Lace-trimmed Cami: Old Navy
Jeggings: Target
Legwarmers: gift from mom
Scarf, Earrings: own design
Boots: Bass Lamont

No Repeats W & W: Day Two

 Best Laid plans....today i list my 'workaday capsule' items - with pictures!  Yesterday i set out to photograph the pieces on our expandable free-standing clothes dryer. I was wearing some of the items, so i would stand next to the clothes dryer to 'include' those pieces. Cute, huh?

First of all, the constrast between the light and dark items meant that either the light items were blasted out with light and you could see the dark ones fine, or the light was subtle enough to catch the detail in the lighter items but the darker items were lost in murky shadow. And if that wasn't bad enough - downpour!  Fortunately  i believe in wash 'n wear (no dry cleaning for this girl), and i don't melt, so no disaster resulted.  I just had to come up with a plan B, which you see below. I photographed the groups of tops, bottoms, and third layers (sweaters and jackets) in two groups each (light and dark). I do have a few pre-planned accessory sets. I'd planned to photograph those yesterday, but........let's just say i hope to get to that today!

light tops - left to right, top to bottom: grey l/s henley, ivory l/s sweater, s/s polo (soon to be cut up to a ruffle tee), light and dark grey lace trimmed tanks.

dark tops - left to right, top to bottom: black l/s sweater, crew & vee neck s/s tees, scoop neck l/s ribbed sweater, black lace trimmed tank, scoop neck l/s dark grey sweater.

light bottoms - left to right: khaki slim cargoes, khaki capris, khaki dirndl over grey ruffle skirt, mlle. pointy-hem button-front skirt. shown in top photo: grey jeggings.

dark bottoms - left to right: black jersey 'posh pants' by Carushka, skunk skirt.

light third layers - left to right: khaki crop pinstripe jacket, jean style jacket, palm tree jacket (Issey Miyake).

dark third layers - left to right: black cashmere cardi, black cotton wrap sweater, olive drab no-button cardi, Tweeds sweater.

That's twenty six items, although i doubt the weather will allow me to wear any of the tees or tanks (quantity 6) as a top by itself. But they will be useful as layering pieces or under a third layer. To make it more of a 'challenge' i could have whittled this down to fewer pieces, but that just seems kind of overly artificial - the point is for me to get used to working with this part of my wardrobe (plenty of 'cake' here, i also noticed). I don't see how excluding some of these items will further that aim.

gratuitous mushroom photo

 On to yesterday's outfit - i confess, i wore jeggings as pants!!!  Really, i'm not condoning it as a practice. However, the driving idea behind the 'workaday' capsule is comfy, casual items for wear around the house. If i'm not going anywhere, i may as well. In my defense, the black sweater is pretty thick, and i wore one of the lace trimmed tanks from the second picture underneath. Those tanks are really long, and i spent most of the day with it pulled down to mid-hip/the top of my legs. Especially in the back. Also, the distressed wash of the fabric 'fuzzes out' a lot of the detail beneath.

Oh for crying out loud, enough justification - they're still jeggings!  ........mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa......

The necklace is actually a rolo bracelet to which i've been adding these 'potato pearls' and a couple of charms.  A week or so ago i was thinking how much i'd like a necklace that looked like this bracelet - so i clipped it into a 16" snake necklace and " wah-lah " ! Having so much weight along one area of the necklace makes it move and curve in a very distinct way.

Sweater: Royal Robbins
Tank: Old Navy
Jeggings: Target (Mossimo)
Boots: Bass Lamont

Nap Time

The evil sore throat from earlier this week is kicking me behind. Back this weekend or maybe Monday....have a great weekend either way!!

Jeggings: Mossimo at Target (in their first non-camping outing)
Tunic: April Cornell dress, shortened