Double Denim Visibility

Well. I believe i have figured out how to participate in Patti's wonderful Visible Monday posts. Click here to check out the other twenty-and-counting participants this morning! Honestly, i feel that most of the time my feeling 'visible' has more to do with my mood than with what i'm wearing. But in the case of double denim, i do feel a wee bit awkward.

It just seems a little young, a little overly super duper casual, kind of tunnel vision: "I love denim so durn much, it's so practical that i decided i'm going to stock my closet with every single thing in denim! My life solution is here!!!!" I also profoundly dislike any number of 'fancy denim' ornate pantsuits i've seen on middle aged ladies. They seem particularly popular amongst middle westerners visiting the wine country. The outfits tend to be of a light wash and consist of a pair of jeans and a traditional jean jacket. The whole thing is ornamented with light colored embroidery, re-embroidery, applique, beading, and rhinestones with concentration on the pockets.

Needless to say this type of dressing is fine and fun on other people, but the thought of wearing it myself gives me a serious case of the heebie jeebies! Taking an objective look at my outfit here the differences are more prominent than the similarities. I especially like the way that the dark wash blends with the darker grey of the knits, and the way the knits add in different textures. It has the 'pulling together' and slimming effect of a monochromatic look, while the denim and mix of colors and textures keep it casual and more individual. I think i've pulled it off - i definitely feel more comfortable with the look now than even a month ago.

The wonderful part about the simple shape of this coat is that it feels like having a luxurious faux fur blanket. I often wear it like a coat, but i also like to drape it around me in various ways. So snuggly!

I'm posting this on Sunday, but i will link to Patti's current visible Monday post as soon as she has it up and i can get to a computer. In the meantime, feast your eyes on Visible Mondays past.

Unexpected Hospitalization

 ...of my sewing machine! I've been working on "jeans number two", a pair of boot cuts in black stretch denim with contrast topstitching in medium taupe. Now, when sewing for yourself you go along aways, stopping now and then to pin baste the remaining seams and try on your article for fit. All of you who sew will be familiar with this process. There are so many variables affecting the final fit of a garment, and as home sewers we are usually making unique pieces so we can't rely overmuch on past experience. It makes sense, and avoids much heartache, to have fitting sessions at a few points along the way. Couture houses and custom tailors use the same process in making garments for their customers.

Often the process of adjusting fit continues after the garment is 'finished'. The jeans you see in this post are the first pair i made. I completed them and wore them two or three times when i decided to pin up some excess along the inseam and see how they looked.  I ended up taking off about 2 inches out of the circumference of each leg for a sleeker fit. This collage shows the original fit of the jeans, the outdoor pics show them after 'slimming'.

Getting back to 'jeans number two'. I finished the front pockets and fly, the back pockets and yoke, then pin basted the legs and took a look in the mirror. Hey now! There's a look! I spent a few minutes turning this way and that, admiring those long, lean-looin' legs - oh yeah. (It's true, this behaviour is not strictly limited to the teenage set.) I scampered right back to the sewing area, highly motivated to flame on through the rest of the process, when my machine froze. Fortunately i didn't have to create a huge hole right in the crotch to remove the needle from my jeans, but further progress came to a standstill.

Fortunately The Cotton Patch is just down the road in Lafayette. They're a Bernina dealer, can do a service on my machine in 2 1/2 weeks - and they provide a loaner in the meantime! I had reconciled myself to a machine-less period of weeks at least (and no new jeans). You can imagine how thrilled i was to find the offer of a replacement while my old faithful was at the spa!!

 The loaner is settled nicely in my sewing spot, and my faithful friend awaits her cleaning, oiling, and lubricating at the shop. Really, after a quarter century of consistent performance it'd be awfully cold-hearted to begrudge her a vacation. Meanwhile, i'm off to the service for Aunt's companion. After a week of scarily dense fog the day has dawned brilliant and beautiful in their honor. I hope your days go beautifully as well!

Yummy

 I just loved this outfit and got a real kick out of wearing it! This is the first time i've worn this top tucked in. I was worried that it wouldn't come off, but it worked okay. And there wasn't so much extra fabric from the peplum that i had to pull off some weird clothing-judo in order to cope.

I love re-mixing, as you well know. Nothing thrills me more than busting up an outfit, though to be honest i don't buy clothing as outfits, don't make items with an eye to creating outfits, and have not repeated an outfit since sometime in 1983. Really!  I don't know how i got into this habit of NEVER repeating the same configuration of clothing. Maybe it was an attempt to make my tiny wardrobe seem more varied. Maybe it had something to do with reading this Ellen Wallace piece on French style secrets, published in Cosmopolitan in 1982. (Kudos to the brilliant Dead Fleurette for digging it up and making it available on the internet!)

But recently i've been feeling drawn towards repeating once more. I definitely had my favorite 'outfits' when i was a girl and in college - i can remember many of them to this day. I loved feeling that what i wore was flattering, stylish, comfortable, 'just right'. These 'just right' outfits often grew from 'just right' articles of clothing. As i've managed to get my hands on some 'just right' pieces once again, i suppose it's not surprising that i'm feeling the lure of repeating 'just right' outfits again as well.

This longing, of course, goes straight against the grain of the style blogging world. I have to admit, the more time i spend style blogging the less i'm attracted to some of the blogging world's main tenants. I want to repeat outfits that make me look great and that i love. I don't want to wear a belt as a necklace. I don't want to wear dresses as skirts and hold it all together with a belt. I want my clothing to fit as well as it can, with no fussing. I don't want to 'stretch my style boundaries' just to stretch them -  i want to look as great as i can as much of the time as i can. In my view, experimentation is only called for when i have no idea what i can wear that will look great.

One incident brings this home to me. A little over a year ago, a certain style blogger decided that she wanted to wear a particular item of clothing. This piece represented many things to her - edginess, rocker-style, out-there-ness, extravagance, boldness. It was also very trendy at that time. Let's say it was a purple ostrich skin moto jacket. It took time to find just 'the one', to develop an outfit that she felt was 'her' around the jacket, money was spent in abundance, etc. This blogger wore the item proudly on her blog, talking about how edgy she felt in it and how much it was completely outside of her 'style boundaries'.  The blogger looked fine in the piece - not great, or outlandish. Just fine. The blogger may have felt edgy and outrageous, but it didn't seem to come across in the photos. And i've never seen that item again.

I am aware that an argument can be made that this was a learning experience, well worth the time and effort, that has affected this person's style in many ways. And it can be considered rude to make these types of observations about what another person chooses to wear.

But i wonder. What if the same energy had been put towards finding a great, edgy, rocker look for that particular person? If the focus had been in finding what items, colors, shapes, details, proportions worked to give this person an edgy, outrageous look instead of focusing on a certain trendy item of clothing? If the focus was on this person instead of on a certain piece of clothing? The ironic thing, to me, is that this style blogger had previously shown herself in some outfits that looked very edgy and very her.

But they weren't trendy or outrageous, and relied very heavily on certain elements that she had decided she wanted to avoid. I am in no way knocking this person. Like many style bloggers, this person has fairly recently become interested in clothes and fashion - making up for lost time is completely understandable! And wearing a wide variety of colors, shapes, styles, can give you a feeling of really participating in their own unique style, and is a tried and true way to hone in on what you really love. Yet, the more i blog the more i finding i'd rather wear the same clothes and look and feel great!

The fashion chameleon, with boxes of clothes in the attic whose contents she has memorized, is a true style type. But so is "The French Girl". It's interesting to me that through participating in style blogging, a world ruled by the chameleon, i've come back to my roots, in love with the small, gorgeous, flattering closet.

Do any of you find yourselves at odds with some of the main "Holy Commandments" of style blogging? Which are they? How much does it get in the way of your enjoyment of reading or writing a blog? Any great 'French Girl" blogs you can turn us on to?

Kismet! Or Is It?

My favorite is when you're rushing around in the morning, your entire goal to just not be naked. You've no style or fashion concerns on your mind whatever. Without your knowledge, the outfit fairy twanks her magic twanger  BOOM   You look down and you're wearing a great new look! Of course, i've spent enough time and effort obsessing about style in general, and my own wardrobe in particular, to realize it's nothing to do with kismet. It is everything to do with planning planning planning.

But it sure feels magical when it happens! How paradoxical is it that achieving effortlessness does indeed require a commitment to a significant amount of effort? This ensemble goes to another topic that's been on my mind quite a bit recently, especially since I won two books by Kendall Farr in a You Look Fab contest. The package arrived about 3-4 weeks ago and i have been reading both books every single day since. Ms. Farr is full of incredibly useful ideas and inspiration, and her writing style and wit make taking it all in a breeze. From my ego's standpoint, it doesn't hurt that she espouses many ideas which i've also found to be integral to personal style.

One of these concepts is the importance of dressing to flatter your individual physical person. Staying true to this principle has a many positive effects. For one, you'll always look great! More to the point to this look, you will severely limit the colors and shapes in your wardrobe. I'll admit that many many fashionable people will be aghast at my last sentence - we want options, variety, up to date, new new new! But there are those among us who feel overwhelmed by the vast variety of offerings available, and who will be happy to have an easy way to cut through the fluff and get straight to the good stuff. Even better, choosing only items that flatter your person naturally creates an individual color and shape palette wherein the great bulk of clothing works together effortlessly. How does this come about?

Let's take color as an example. Three characteristics determine whether or not colors 'go' or can combine pleasingly to the eye. These are temperature (warm vs. cool), saturation, and similarity of tint-shade-tone.*** Warm colors 'go' with warm and cool with cool. Colors with a similar degree of saturation (strong or weak colors) 'go' together. And colors with a similar degree of tint, tone, OR shade go together. In the jacket and blouse i'm wearing here, all of the colors are warm, they are all fairly saturated, and they are all tones (overwashed with grey).  True pastels all go together because they are all cool to neutral, are very lightly saturated or 'weak', and are all tints (the base color is heavily diluted with white). Follow the embedded links for definitions and examples of these terms, or search the web for more information. If you take the time to train your eye to recognize these color characteristics, finding and combining your colors will suddenly make complete sense.

As it happens, temperature, saturation, and tint-tone-shade also determine which colors look most flattering on you.  Therefore, sticking to your best colors will result in a closet which mixes very well. The same principle goes for shapes. Adhering slavishly to these principles allowed me to toss on two items bought six years apart, from different stores and different designers, and look put together and even current.

It's easy to take a look at this approach to wardrobe building and wonder, "Where's the room for ME?!?!?" It sounds terrifically restrictive - but it's not. Subtle variations of shape and silhouette, details, pattern, echoes of various times and places all offer tremendous opportunity for expression as well as contributing so much to your personal style. It took me about five minutes to find these variations on a theme. Each of these coats has a defined waist and shoulder, a collar, and is a strong, neutral-to-cool red.

Even with these narrow guidelines i could find coats ranging from simple and clean-lined, through military-style, to ruffles and bows, and one straight-out bombshell trench. I hope this demonstrates that even within some pretty strict guidelines a vast amount of individual expression is possible.

Eight Red Coats by mrseccentric featuring a leopard print coat

Do any of you have strict, 'do or die' guidelines you follow when choosing new items for your wardrobe? Or do you take a more inclusive, spontaneous approach to filling your closet?

*** temperature: warm colors tend to have yellow or red undertones, cool colors tend to have blue or green undertones. At the same time there are cool yellows and warm blues (turquoise is a warm blue)

saturation: the amount or strength of the 'color' or hue in a color. the red coats are all very saturated, there is a ton of 'red' in the color. My sandals are at the 'weak' end of the saturation spectrum - are they oyster, or bone, or cream, or......? The 'color' is just not saturated enough to really tell!


tints, tones, shades: these are all 'pure' hues or colors with something added.  tints are color with white added, shades are pure hues with black added, tones are color with grey added. This illustration is very helpful.

Buckle That Swash!

 Love this look, love my fairy godmother who picked out this blouse, love this coat, love my amazing husband who found this coat for me.........love that i have a blog and readers with whom i can share the love!

Love my mom who taught me proper grammar, love me dad who schooled me in the art of the pun.......sadly, mr. eccentric's aunty lost her own love just a few days ago. They were together thirty years, and lived life more fully than anyone i have ever known. It's a blessing to have no regrets, and one blessing that we can give to ourselves. But i don't know that it lessens the shock or the pain.

I also don't know how much i'll be 'on the blog' this coming week. Until i'm back, show a little wisdom and do what you can to follow aunty's example.

I'll be doing my best to follow her example too. Now let's all get out there and spread the love!

Jeans and White Blouses......

to the tune of "Knights In White Satin"

Your blogger is on a jeans kick, no holds barred. Jeans are so so so very easy to wear in the Gal On The Go lifestyle led by so many of us; denim mixes with all colors and textures; denim plays well with clothing high and low, casual and dressy; and in winter they keep your legs warm and battle the wind.  Of course, all of this is a mute point if you can't find jeans that fit, or a pair that looks sleek and un-adorned. Which made jeans a mute point for this blogger until i knuckled down and got into the 'Durn It! I'm Making My Own Jeans!" project.

When a whole new ocean of looks opens up for me, i like to jump in and splash around for a while. (Translation: expect a lot of jeans-related posts in the near future.) Turning to this look in particular, for some reason it made me feel quite 'polished' when i put it on. Looking at the pictures i can't say i see it, but the feeling was strong at the time. As you know, i am and have been a Rough Around The Edges gal since i was a wee tomboy. I've spent untold time, money, mental and emotional energy in my quest for the perfect RATE effect.

Thus, feeling polished and liking it was a new experience. It was almost startling, as this was not anything i'd been planning for or trying to achieve. What fun to have my version of 'polished' pop up so unexpectedly and feel so right!

What i AM constantly trying to do is spread my wings, both personally and stylistically. It just goes to show that if you set your mind to something and stick with it, eventually you'll get results. They may not be exactly what you expected, but come they will.

Have any of  you had any of these type of unexpected abilities show up on your style journey?  Or has your journey unfolded more as you expected?

Jeans: McCalls' 5894 Palmer & Pletsch 'The Perfect Jean'
Blouse: Converse One Star at Target
Scarf: gift, from KPFA Crafts Fair
Pearls: own design
Belt: DKNY, thrifted
Jacket: Ralph Lauren (i think it's just getting old enough to be vintage this month!)
Boots: Dansko

Perfection

 It's not often that you run across something, anything, perfect. As you realize, i am in no ways a perfectionist and happen to appreciate the rugged edges, the unexpected, the unfinished in our world. Life is neither perfect nor fair, which accounts for both sadness and beauty in life. In style and clothing (ostensibly this blog's focus) i adore the unexpected, the worn, the "not quite right but somehow it works". In fact, 'perfection' in style often turns me off - it can so easily become too precious, overly fussy, expected, matchy-matchy.

But oh the incredible moments when perfection is done right. When it actually IS perfect. I innocently walked into perfection at BiBa on Halloween. The boutique participated in Pacific Grove's Friday Night Art Walk by showcasing pieces from Anatomica. Anatomica is a collections of women's clothing as wearable art. Artist and printmanker Tobin Keller collaborates with artist/clothing designer Barbara Bartels in the production of these objects - each one made to order and custom designed and created for a specific woman. Every dress is created as the result of a commission and is intended for wear by one unique woman. The pattern is created for her particular measurements and 'considered as an artistic expression of the wearer - individuality will persist.' (quote taken from Anatomica publicity material kindly supplied by Mona Kelly).

While there is a definite cohersion of line, graphic quality, and materials in these garments, the range of color and value contrast is stunning. All of the garments i saw consisted of a silk charmeuse or crepe 'core' with overlays of chiffon. Additionally, the dyes are overlaid one upon another, as well as the various screen prints. The jubilant, exuberant use of overlapping prints (all done by hand) is especially joyous in the piece above. The marvelous thing is that this layer upon layering of images is just as 'deep' in the more subtle pieces - they draw you in to try to spy the shadows of pods, leaves, cross sections hidden in the folds of fabric.

I neglected to get certain pictures ( i was so overwhelmed!) and for that i apologize. Each of these dresses had a feature i'll try to convey to you now. On the 'core' pieces of the dress is printed, in shadow grey with fuzzy edges, a head and shoulders silhouette of the artist himself. You can only 'find' it by holding the layers against one another and holding the whole garment up against the light. It's difficult to imagine anything more delightful than a dress which leads you on a treasure hunt to find it's subtle charms; and how very different from the many 'over the top', put-it-all-out-there creations of today. Mr. Keller and Ms. Bartels truly grasp the mystery of dressing and seduction.

The overall silhouette of these designs is fairly simple, flowing and unfussy, allowing the whims of the fabric drape, the color, and the design to shine.  The detail and quality of this printing is exquisite. The screen printed patterns on these garments really draw you in - the colors and shapes are so intriguing and striking from a distance, but you can't quite make out what they are depicting. Upon closer inspection you discern that some of these patterns are taken from botanical illustrations, though many retain their mystery no matter how close you get.

This luxury carries over into the construction. Anatomica garments are sewn by a high end lingerie company, in order to make sure that no sloppy edge finishes or zipper insertions take away from the color, drape, line. I haven't had the pleasure of owning any designer clothing. But i can tell you the particular  zipper applications on these dresses i've only seen on clothing in the Chanel boutique on Maiden Lane.

Tobin Keller is the Director of the Cabrillo Gallery at Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA. Mr. Keller has been screen printing for decades, always maintaining an interest in overlaying a variety of images. Barbara Bartels has recently shifted her focus from her decades-long career in clothing design and fashion illustration to drawing and painting. While Anatomica is only about a year old, as it turns out Tobin Keller has had a long term 'fun' passion with costume making. Who knows what spark leapt between the two various parts of his creative mind and set the 'wearable art' fire ablaze. Who can tell what kismet led Barbara Bartels to say yes to this project. I can only be thrilled that it did! And that BiBa decided to display these gorgeous pieces in the morning sun.

Anatomica pieces were featured at BiBa boutique for one week in late October, 2011. This post made possible by BiBa boutique (permission to photograph) and Manager/Buyer Mona Kelly (background materials). Thank you!

Tobin Keller website: www.tobinwkeller.com

Barbara Bartels website: www.barbartels.com

BiBa

Clean & Contemporary European-style Fashions and Accessories
831-655-BiBa
211 Forest Avenue
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
bibawest@sbcglobal.net