Blue / Jacket

Here's the first of many promised jacket pictures!

I wore this jacket a few times earlier this year, once for the "teacher" look I posted in January. I sure do like to wear it with blue. And those shoes too.

This time I've left the bottom button undone, which my male coworker assures me is the only proper way to wear suit jackets. I have yet to ascertain whether that rule applies to women's jackets as well.

Jackets for the Win(ter, spring, and fall)!

Every year I seem to go on some sort of fashion spree, in which I get mildly obsessed with a particular category of clothing.

In 2010, it was knee socks. 2011, arm warmers. 2012, shoes (that, I have to say, is an ongoing obsession, but it has tapered off a bit). This past year, it seems to have been jackets. Since last December, I have acquired 9 coats and jackets, and I still want more! I want one in every color.

Jackets are my new favorite accessory. They are the tools that are going to allow me to extend my beloved summer wardrobe into fall and winter.

Get Jacketed

Jackets turn the sheerest, most sleeveless dresses into cool-weather items. Throw a jacket over anything, and you instantly have one more color, one more texture to spice up your outfit. A jacket turns the most casual getup into an office-appropriate ensemble.

I can't wait to show you all the wonderful ways that you can make jackets work for you! Coming up in the next few posts!

How to Shorten a Necklace

Overly long necklaces are my continual burden. I don't know why, but every necklace that I get, the bottom end of it seems to fall right at the line of my collar. Resulting in annoying situations like the necklace creeping under my shirt, where it looks stupid or can't be seen at all.

Recognize this necklace from my other blog? Probably not,
because the bird is hidden under my shirt!

How to get the necklace up to a more reasonable length?

Well, the quick and dirty fix is to tie a couple of knots in the chain. I usually do one knot on each side of the clasp, and then work up to two on each side if necessary. Really simple, right? So simple, in fact, that you probably didn't need to be told...but just in case that was a new concept to you, there it is.

Most of the necklaces in my collection are all knotted up in this way, which leads me to believe I need a more permanent solution. So my next project is to figure out how to shorten a necklace chain the right way. I'll keep you posted.

Dress Shirt

 It's a fairly average-looking outfit, of plain trousers, neutral shoes, and a plain purple shirt. If it weren't for the rather large necklace, it would be truly unremarkable.

Except for this little secret: the shirt is a dress! Much too short and tight to wear comfortably at work, yet too casual to save for a special occasion, this purple dress (bought on eBay, mostly because it came with a skirt that I really liked) seemed doomed to a life in no-man's land.

Until I learned that it didn't look too bad hiked up above my hips as a long ruched-looking top. Ta-da!

Think outside the box

Double your wardrobe's versatility by letting your clothes do double-duty. Don't be held back by traditional definitions. Dresses can become tops! Skirts can become tops! Can pants become tops? Hm, that remains to be seen.

Garden Party

There are two things I love in this world: Full skirts and enormous heels, but sadly, I just don't think they go well together. I paired this full-skirted skater dress with green high heels first, but all I could see was a thunder-thighed ostrich. For some reason, the silhouette of wide at the hips and long and narrow at the toes just doesn't work, which leads me to a new... The wider the skirt, the flatter the shoe.

I traded my green stilettos for more demure shoes in burgundy with mid-heels. Naturally they had roses on the toes, to tie in oh-so-unsubtly with the chintzy floral pattern on the dress. The lower heels went much better, anyway, with the 50's vibe the dress was putting out. I decided to continue in that vein with a classic round-neck cardigan.

I wanted my hair to reflect the retro look, and to my knowledge, long straight hair was pretty much never done in the 50's. Lacking the ability to do voluminous short waves, I decided to go with an updo. What I ended up with was some sort of weird almost-French twist (which I've never been able to do, but I have to say I enjoyed the effect of this failed attempt).

Lastly, I threw on a ladylike pink necklace (I considered the ubiquitous 50's pearls, but I didn't want to go overboard, and I wanted to wear this necklace because it's new) and some vintage earrings with – what else – roses embedded in the glass!