Speaking of Hippie...

This skirt is pretty much the last holdover from my flowy skirt days. I've had it for 6 years, and I'm getting tired of it. Last year, in fact, I didn't even wear it once.

It's got a distinctively autumnal vibe, so I can only wear it about 3 months out of the year, and last year, I didn't even pull it out of storage until it was almost too late. And then, well, I was still tired of it. This year, thanks to someone who recently listed the same skirt on eBay (several times, unsuccessfully apparently), I had it in my mind, and brought it out while it was still wearable!

It helped that I had a new orange top to wear with it, keeping the boredom factor down to a manageable level. I was even excited about wearing it. And then I tried on the top...and it looked awful! But a commitment is a commitment—I was going to wear the skirt, no matter what it took!

Fortunately, I had one other new shirt that matched the skirt—the dark olive green cowl-neck short-sleeved sweater you see in the photo. I wore it with my humongous plastic bangle, tree earrings (their bare branches carrying on the fall theme), and plain brown shoes.

At the last minute, while trying to figure out how to wear such a voluminous skirt on my bike (the sensible person would just pack the skirt and wear shorts, but not me!), it occurred to me that my faux-leather belt would look oh-so-cute as an accessory! So on it went! Next to the warm shades of the skirt, the belt ended up having a weird greenish tinge, but I'm so tired of having to have clothes in every shade of every color so they don't clash with whatever else I'm wearing...that I wore it anyway! Take that, color theory!


All in all, I came up with a nice earth-mother-in-the-autumn (with-a-mild-case-of-color-blindness) type of outfit...and I'm still tired of the skirt. I'm now selling it on eBay, along with the orange shirt that looked so awful on me. We'll see if I have better luck than that other eBay seller.

By the way...

How to bike in a skirt

To ride your bike while wearing a long skirt, you have a couple of options. If you do it regularly, you might want to invest in a skirt guard. They're finally starting to sell them in the U.S.! Crafty though I am, my attempts at making one have always been a resounding failure. If you don't wear long skirts that often, you might find it easier to just gather up your skirt so it's short enough to stay clear of the wheel and gears. I bunch up my skirt around my waist, folding it several times if it's got a lot of fabric, then secure it in place with a belt. It looks ridiculous, but it keeps my skirt clean and makes for a lot less changing of clothes!