Ultimate Green and Purple

 

My favorite color scheme is back in action, here to help me make the most of the last day of our January warm spell (which was yesterday. Sad face).

 I started with a green crinkle blouse that I (of course!) removed the shoulders from. I don't buy clothes with the express intention of making them open-shouldered, but it's the easiest way to make a too-small shirt look good on me. This was another one that I thought looked fine when I first tried it, and only realized it fit terribly after it was too late to return. Opening up the shoulder seam fixed every problem with the blouse, making it fit better across the top and even making the sleeves longer when they had previously ended at an awkward spot right above my wrist.

The lightweight fabric and the open shoulders were perfect for a warm day (high of 65!), and I paired them with an above-the-knee skirt, the better to let my legs finally breathe.

After choosing the key pieces, I kept piling on the green, choosing olive green ankle boots and a green necklace. As much as I wanted to let my legs breathe, I felt that they were missing something—perhaps a boot topper!

My old purple and olive leg warmers, turned out to be just the ticket for tying together the two colors in the outfit! I don't think I've worn these things since 2015, but I'm always glad when I can find another novel use for them.

I've been blogging up a storm this month (making up for a painfully slow December and November), but I think this is my favorite outfit of the new year!

Embroidered bootcuts

Shortly after I put embroidery patches on my combat boots, the second of my three floral embroidery patches found a new home on a pair of jeans.

Unlike the first one, I specifically recall that I'd ordered the blue-on-blue patch to cover up some unsightly stains on a different pair of boots. I had thought to spruce them up and sell them, but the colors never really looked great together, so instead, I just left them undecorated, and still sold them! This meant I had a lovely blue embroidery patch with nothing to do.

I also had a pair of regular old bootcut jeans that I didn't much care for. The wash was a dingy greyish blue, and the waistband was annoyingly low. Nevertheless, I decided to keep them for crafting experiments. Originally, I'd planned to paint them, but seeing as that ambitious project never got off the ground after several months, I set the bar lower and decided to use them for quick-and-easy iron-on embroidery!

Really, that was all there was to it. I ironed the patch on! Easiest DIY ever!

For their first (and, let's face it, probably only) wear, I paired them with all blue. Blue sweater over blue camisole, blue earrings (not seen in picture because I decided to be subtle for once), and of course, my periwinkle hair!

Embroidered boots

Over the summer, after my boyfriend kindly funded the purchase of a new pair of combat boots for my birthday, I suddenly had an old pair just lying around with nothing to do. I could have sold them to some poor sap who doesn't mind walking around in a big flaky mess that leaks profusely whenever it rains, but it wasn't long before I had a better idea. I would embellish them!

Resuscitating old shoes is my new favorite activity. I've recently done it to my purple slouch boots, my boring beige ballet flats, and my brown hand-me-downs. Since embroidered everything was the top trend of 2017, I figured adding an embroidery patch would be a fashionable way to wring a few more months of life out of these trusty old boots as well.

Sometimes with my crafting projects, it's hard for me to remember what was cause and what was effect, and what inspired what. In the case of these boots, I know that I purchased several embroidery patches on eBay, but I can no longer remember whether I bought them intending to decorate the boots, or whether I bought them for another reason, and then realized I could use them on the boots. Either way, I had three different styles of embroidery patches when I started this project, and I used one of them for the boots.

The set that I used was a very common motif among embroidery trends last year: two rose-themed patches, usually placed side-by-side on a shirt.  The fact that they were mirror images of each other meant that they would lend themselves equally well to embellishing a pair of footwear.

[The picture is not mine; I merely use it to illustrate a common way I've seen patches like mine used]

The patches originally were too cumbersome to fit or look good on the boots, so I cut them in a few strategic places to make several smaller patches.

I sealed the cut edges with clear nail polish.

After a couple of positioning tests, I attached the first patch to one of the boots. I used Tacky Glue, knowing that it comes out in water, because that way I could reuse either the patches or the boots or both, should I get bored with the new style.

I stuffed the shoes with fabric so they would have a smooth, unwrinkled surface, carefully set the remaining patches so that both shoes would be symmetrically aligned, then I let them dry for a day.

Then I let them dry for a week.

Then another week.

Then almost a month!

I finished this project around December 15, but traveling, nasty weather, and the winter blues (read: not leaving the house for an entire weekend multiple weekends in a row) conspired to keep these boots out of the public eye for much longer than I wished. I wore them once last week, but was unable to get a picture of them because I was in such a rush. Finally, on Sunday, I broke them out for a spontaneous evening date with my boyfriend. Why I bothered to wear fancy boots when they would be spending half the evening hidden under a chair in a darkened room, and the other half the evening allowing my toes to freeze while we waited outside, I'll never know. OK, I do know. It was so I'd have the chance to feature them in this blog!

I also wore my cropped marled burgundy sweater. You might recognize this sweater from when I combined it with another one. After wearing the Frankensweater once, I decided I hated it. I tried to clean up the joins a little bit and tighten the waist, but it was a lost cause, so finally I just ditched the bottom part and hemmed the top one for a much more cropped sweater than the original.

Cropped sweaters necessitate an underlayer, so I wore a burgundy tank top. The tank top looked good with the boots and sweater when I tried it on, but appeared much more purplish in the photos. I'm not colorblind, I swear; but I think my camera is!

Jailbird

I don't know if you remember my first black-and-white striped top, but I do. I loooooved it when I first got it, and I loooooved it right up until it bit the dust. It was a sad day when I finally decided the collar had lost all hope of its original shape, and the holes had gotten too big too ignore any more.

Since this beloved shirt and I parted ways, I've been waiting patiently for something similar to replace it, but consistently I've just come up empty. Nothing compared to its perfect fit and its perfectly sized array of stripes. That is, until Monday.

On Monday, I went to the thrift store for the 50% off Martin Luther King Day sale. I was just about to head to the checkout when my eyes fell on this sweater. The black and white stripes were about one inch wide, just like the old one! The shape looked tailored and the size looked fairly form-fitting, just like the old one! In short, it was a very acceptable substitute for my long-lost shirt!

I had already been to the fitting room once and had no desire to go again, so I threw this top into my bag untested, and crossed my fingers. I am pleased to say it was a great fit! It's not quite as cool as the old sweater (the white is not as white, and I'm not crazy about the henley collar, or the fact that the stripes on the bottom hem are askew), but after years of waiting, I'll take what I can get.

To commemorate my old sweater and celebrate the new, I decided to take a trip down memory lane, and do a modern take on the original's last hurrah.

Then

Now

I no longer have the teal skirt I wore in that look (I decided it was too short for work, and it, too, was showing the signs of age), but I recently acquired a new one! I put the same boots on my feet, but wore them pulled up instead of folded over. I still have the jewelry I wore in the original look, but I also have some cool new jewelry, so I chose to wear that. I figured a bird in a cage would be a great companion to the prison stripes on my shirt.

The temperature is swell, but the earrings are stupendous!

It may be damp and dreary, but look! I'm posing outside in January!

At least once a winter, we are blessed with a warm spell that turns our sad northern landscape into a semblance of spring, and every time, I'm compelled to celebrate like it's never happened before. Apparently, I really like to celebrate this occasion by wearing green pants, since I did it in 2016, and I did it again today.

These are some new pants I got from Swap.com, one of several straight-legged pairs I purchased to expand my work wardrobe. In an homage to the spring-like weather, I chose a floral color for the top—a purple shade that, sadly, clashes with my hair.

For the shoes, I went with velvet ballet flats that I got for just 5$ at Shoppers World. I haven't been going there much recently, but this shoe purchase reminded me that it's an excellent store for the occasional great bargain!

Although the last two weeks have seen me accessorizing mostly with scarves and necklaces, today I decided instead to go with my old standby—statement earrings.

And what a statement these ones make! Sporting huge plastic gems in every color of the pastel rainbow, and dangling all the way past my collarbones, they are the biggest earrings I've ever worn for this blog (although I do have one bigger pair that I don't think I've ever pictured)! A little outré for the office, but hey, it was a Friday!
 

Book Look

The skirt is new(ly thrifted) and very brightly colored, but with its cut and ankle length, it's not exactly at the height of fashion. It's also wrinkled and slightly see-through. For this reason, I had to wear the blouse over it rather than tucked in. Sadly, the blouse is also slightly see-through, and combined with its too-large fit, I ended up looking decidedly frumpy. The only good thing about this outfit is the scarf. I managed to tie it in a cute bow with the tails dangling down to just the right length. If only the blouse had been better-fitting or tucked in neatly. If only I didn't have so many issues with transparency. If only! I would have been the very picture of fashion.

 

Earlier today, I couldn't wait to ditch this outfit. I told a friend, "I need to shower and change out of my librarian clothes," and for some reason, that changed everything! My outfit was still a little dowdy, but compared to your stereotypical old-fashioned librarian, it was a paragon of boldness! 

I decided I had to blog it, so I tugged the blouse back and hid as much of the extra fabric as I could, to fake a better fit, and took a few pictures! Shhhh! Don't tell everyone my secret for making the frumpiest outfit look photogenic!

A little lavender

I finally got around to dyeing my hair a pastel purple, as has been my dream for two years at least! While I'm mostly happy with the effect (it took me two attempts), the color ended up darker and slightly more bluish than I'd envisioned. I think I've been a little too conservative with the bleach, which has been keeping my hair darker than the platinum base required for a truly pastel color. I'll figure it out. By the time pastel hair is a relic of the 2010s, I'll have it down to a science! In any case, while I have this shade, I'll make the most of the unevenly tinted periwinkle!

While dressing for one's hair color might be a little restrictive on an everyday basis, I do like to make sure my outfit complements my hair on the first day after a new dye job. When I colored my hair pink in October, I matched it with pink jewelry and shoes. The previous summer when I went green, I wore green shoes.

For this new lavender hue, I decided to build my outfit around, not purple, but a color that goes well with purple: green. Since the hair isn't a dark shade, I made sure my green was equally pale, choosing a top in a muted seafoam hue. Then on my feet, where darker colors are a logical way to ground an outfit, I went with my trusty old teal shoes. The color combo looks weird in the picture, but it was just right in real life.

Confession: I originally wore a royal purple necklace, but it kept getting stuck on the collar of the shirt, so I took it off, and I'm glad I did. Sometimes simplicity is best, and I like how the only pop of dark purple in this outfit is the earrings, which just occasionally peep from behind my hair.

Bluer Velvet

My blue velvet dress is one of the oldest things in my wardrobe (not necessarily by actual age, but the thing I've had the longest) that I still wear in public. It was out of style even when I got it (which might be how I was able to score it new with tags for just five dollars, if I remember correctly), and by the beginning of last winter, I was getting ready to send it out to pasture when the velvet trend struck. So I kept it around, but honestly, I can't remember if I wore it at all that winter.

This year, fortunately, velvet is still going strong...and I happen to have recently acquired a pair of blue, crushed velvet, thigh-high boots!

When this outfit idea occurred to me, I thought long and hard about whether I really had the guts to wear a blue velvet dress over blue velvet boots. That's a lot of blue velvet. It might be overkill. But then I decided overkill is what the Unfashionista does best!

I wore the velvet dress and the velvet boots! I briefly contemplated also wearing big blue earrings, but I decided enough was enough. Since my clothing was kind of bizarre, I'd just go conservative with the jewelry. I put on a classy silver necklace, courtesy of my boyfriend (he's pretty much the only reason I have any jewelry at all that's not outlandish!) and some subtle silver drop earrings.

The more I looked at the getup, the more I liked it. It has a lot of things going for it. The monochrome look is always polished—something about the outfit reminds me vaguely of a suit, the epitome of class! The modest dress and the completely obscured legs make for a weirdly anachronistic vibe, but velvet and especially velvet boots are both styles of the moment, so it's got a contemporary appeal. Although I'm not sure I'll look back on this outfit a few years from now without regret, today at least, I'm wearing it with pride!

Sock boots and backup stash

I set a little Fashion Challenge last week, to wear something new or refashioned every day for work. It was a four-day week, so it couldn't be so hard, right?

Tuesday it was my Ultra Violet shirt, Wednesday the green blazer, Thursday the navy sweater, and so all was well, right up until Friday. Friday, I had big plans to wear a cute casual outfit featuring my new burgundy velvet sock boots.

If you have been keeping up with my long-winded years-in-review, you know that both sock boots and velvet boots have been ruling the footwear roost for a while now. I craved a pair of velvet sock boots over a year ago, yet by early this fall, the closest I had come was a suede sock boot (still never worn). Getting desperate, I searched Google Shopping for the term, and finally found a slick burgundy pair just under my maximum price at Forever 21.

 

I was fairly surprised when the entire month of December afforded me zero opportunities to wear this classically Christmas-colored shoe, so for the new year, I resolved to get it out of its box and onto my foot as soon as possible.

Cut to Friday, the day I'd selected to finally wear these boots! I won't bore you with the details of what I originally chose to wear with them, because I didn't wear it. When I got to the office, I realized my wardrobe was malfunctioning in a major way!* Although it wasn't the too-revealing type of wardrobe malfunction, I looked unkempt and completely below my standards. I was annoyed with myself and sad, for a minute, until I realized that this misfortune was the perfect opportunity for me to showcase my Backup Stash.

Backup Stash? You ask. What's that? Well, let me tell you!

Years ago, I started keeping extra clothes at the office in a side drawer of my desk. At first, it was basically just workout clothes, back when I used to sometimes visit the gym after work. Over time, I realized it might be helpful to keep an extra pair of socks and underwear. Maybe a sweater, in case I get cold. A blazer, in case I have an unexpected meeting. Flat shoes, for unplanned across-campus walks. Etc. Etc. Over the years, I have completely filled that drawer with clothes and shoes that might come in handy in an emergency situation. They are usually things that I have retired from everyday wear, so they tend to fit poorly or be out of style, but better that than walking around all day with a huge stain on your pants, right?

The backup stash saved the day for my Fall Florals post a year ago, but I've never before worn garments from the stash so prominently as I did on Friday. What a momentous day!

I was already wearing leggings, so it made sense to wear a dress—I keep a black-and-white sheath dress in the stash. The dress has no sleeves, so I topped it off with the blazer from the stash.  A little too large, a little wrinkly, but still better than my original outfit!

I deliberately limit my stash to mostly black items so they'll look OK with almost anything else I might be wearing, and it paid off for this outfit. My burgundy velvet sock boots didn't look out of place at all, in spite of being worn with clothes that were completely unplanned! Fashion Challenge, complete!

*I told you I wouldn't bore you with this, but if your curiosity is too much for you (as it was for me when I read this post through the eyes of someone else), here's what happened: I wore a black dress that I'd cut up and trimmed with lace on the bottom. The cheap lace edge was clinging to my leggings and causing the whole dress to bunch up around my thighs. The previous night, I'd attached weights to the hem to keep it down, and while this helped, I only tested it out over my pajama pants, which were apparently a much less snaggy texture than the leggings. When I got to work, I found that not only was the dress still bunching up, but you could see the weights very clearly through the lace.

I refuse to be cowled

I got my first cowl-neck sweater in early 2011.

I had decided that I hated cowl necks pretty much by the end of that same year. The drape is almost always sloppy, rarely flattering, and it utterly precludes wearing both necklaces and long dangling earrings! 

When I acquired a hand-me-down cowl-neck sweater sometime last year, I was tempted to donate it—except I've recently developed a desire to get more tunic-length tops, so I can wear comfy leggings without having to worry about what might be showing—and this one was the perfect long and baggy fit!

Off went the cowl, lickety split!

I lie, of course. First I agonized over the best way to remove the cowl. Should I just cut it shorter and make a sort of mock turtleneck? 

Slice it down the middle for a more standard collar? 

I tried both, and neither satisfied, so finally I just cut several notches down to where it was attached, folded the flaps underneath, and sewed it down.

It's what I would call a temporary solution, since the remaining portions of the original cowl tend to work their way out from underneath, and they'll probably start to fray with time, but at least I can wear it for a while and get a feel for whether it needs any further alteration.

With the cowl removed, my sweater was now ready to wear, not with just a necklace, but the biggest type of neck decoration out there—a scarf! My scarf collection doesn't get a whole lot of use, but I've been really digging this multicolored floral one I got free with a JustFab order. It has so many colors, it basically goes with everything that's monochrome, so I thought it would be great for spicing up the vast expanse of navy blue. While the green boots weren't initially even a contender for wearing with the navy sweater, as soon as I saw how they looked next to the scarf, they became my first choice!

Fur boots, textured leggings, a scarf, and a chunky sweater dress: the perfect cozy combo for this bitterly cold winter weather we've been having!

Burnt Blazer

They call it a blazer, but it's a lie, because it can't handle the heat! I decided to iron the collar of this forest green blazer because it just wasn't folding right, and the instant the iron touched it, the fabric melted! 

It left a shiny mark that was impossible to ignore or cover. I liked the fabric and felt sad about losing such a nice garment to such a senseless accident, so I decided I might cut it up and make it into a skirt.

That was almost 3 years ago (I last wore the blazer in spring 2015). I've carried the remains of the blazer around with me from house to apartment to house, and never got motivated enough to make it into something new. Then this fall, faced with a bitterly cold office and a shortage of clothes with sleeves, I suddenly became very interested in layering with cardigans and blazers. I pulled this one out of storage and thought I could make it useful again, not by converting it into something completely different, but simply by removing the damaged collar.

After I finally set to work, I finished this 3-year project with remarkable ease!

I marked where I wanted the new edges with a line of pins, and then cut off the collar and the lapels, leaving just a half-inch for a hem.

Deciding how to protect the raw edges was the hardest part. The fabric was thick enough that it would become bulky if I made a standard hem. Eventually I decided to just wrap it with bias tape. I didn't have any tape that matched the color of the blazer, so I went with a complementing navy hue.

I felt it would go quicker and produce less bulk if I just glued the bias tape on, so I did. In retrospect, it did not go quicker, because I had to wait for the glue to dry over the course of two days, one for the glue on the front side and one for the back.

But finally I was ready for the last stage, which was turning the now-taped seam under and sewing it down.

I tried to keep the seam as close to the edge as possible, so it wouldn't be too noticeable. Here's how it looks on the inside.

And here's how it looks on the outside!

The finished product is fair to middling. The lapels tend to gape open, revealing the bias tape underneath, but fortunately it's a fairly analogous color, so it looks more like a deliberate accent than a mistake (I hope!).

In any case, it's good enough for me to wear it to work again, so I did, putting a slightly less dark green T-shirt underneath, tucking a pair of black skinny pants into a pair of black knee-high boots, and finishing it all off with my grape jewelry set!

The Unfashionista's Official 2017 trend report

Ahhh, dear readers! It's that time of year when the one person who declares herself entirely unqualified to talk about fashion spends an entire post telling you what's been fashionable for the past year!

This year, I'll divide my list into three classifications: Shoe trends, Clothing trends, and Ornamentation trends.

Shoe trends

I noticed my observations were pretty heavy on the shoes this time around (related, perhaps, to the excess of shoe shopping I did this year which resulted in 1/5 of my shoe collection being acquired in the last six months, and causing it to spill over out of its dedicated closet and into two other areas of my bedroom).

Slides and more slides

From chunky pool slides in the early months to pointy-toed flat mules come fall, the slip-on shoe was big this year. While I had my good fun with furry slides, I restrained myself from purchasing more than one pair because it seemed like they were already on the outs by the time I got them. Flat mules, while still mostly the province of fashion bloggers rather than "regular people," seem to be growing in popularity. But I myself just don't feel like getting any. I always found backless shoes to be a hassle, and the silhouette doesn't really do anything for me.

Ankle straps and lacing

While open-faced lace-up shoes graced my list of 2015 shoe trends, this year I found that around-the-ankle ballerina-style lacing took a front seat. In a similar vein, I've seen a lot of ankle straps. I appreciate how ankle detailing can make or break a trouser length, but straps and laces are hard to work with. After acquiring a couple shoes of this ilk and learning how difficult they are to get on and off (imagine re-lacing your shoes once every hour, as I do to keep myself fit at the office!), my enthusiasm for the lace-up trend is waning quickly.

Sock boots

Boots that are so soft and tight-fitting that they might as well be socks, that's what sock boots are! I'm still kicking myself for finding an overknee sock boot in the thrift store two years ago, and letting a lady talk me out of getting it because it basically looked like a shoe with a sock attached. If I'd gotten it, I could have very cheaply preceded the wave of sock boots that are now the coolest thing since snow. I've gotten a few sock boots this year, most of which I haven't worn yet, but I adore them compared to the alternative, which is the rapidly encroaching oversized slouchy boot.

Clothing trends

There wasn't a lot that really caught my eye in terms of clothing this year. Much of it is basically an extension of trends I mentioned in the past, but I'll briefly summarize a few I noticed.

Statement sleeves

Statement sleeves, which includes the bell sleeves I first noted at the beginning of last year, and expanding to lots of upper-arm bulk and ruffles as well, are still getting bigger—figuratively again, but I wouldn't mind if they did it literally too. I would get a huge (figurative) kick out of a resurgence of floor-length sleeves as seen in the Middle Ages, regardless of their impracticality!

Holey jeans nouveau

While holey jeans were pictured in my fashion review of 2014, I have, unbelievably, never actually featured the trend on its own! Perhaps it's because it has been at least somewhat popular for just basically ever. This year, however, holey jeans were worn in a way that I've never before seen: the enormous gaping holes were decorated from beneath with fishnet tights (again, mostly by fashion bloggers, not the general public). While it's not really my cup of tea, I have to admit that this might be the one way of wearing trashed pants (with something cool underneath!) that I would consider trying.

Shirts with attached chokers

Not too surprisingly, the choker trend of last year made it into clothing this year, with shirts that had built-in chokers at the neckline. This was far from a huge trend, but it's something I've never seen done before, so I felt it was at least worth mentioning.

Ornamentation trends

Ornamentation was where it was at for 2017. While silhouettes didn't vary much from last year to this one, I noticed a lot of commonality in terms of how things were decorated.

Themes

One interesting motif this year is the cactus. I didn't see it a ton, but just often enough to notice it. Stars, a more common embellishment in general, seem to have appeared much more often. To some extent, this may be my penchant for stars that calls me to admire them whenever I see them, but I feel like they were more popular globally in 2017. This was also, definitively, the year of the unicorn. While I am proud to say I loved unicorns before they were cool (for proof, see my Halloween costume from 2012, or the unicorn socks I was wearing in 2010), 2017 was the year unicorns reached market saturation ("unicorn hair" and the "Unicorn Frappuccino" are just a few of the relics of this year's unicorn frenzy). A number of unicorn-themed garments and accessories made their way into my ultra-low price range the past few months, which must mean the bubble is about to burst.

Embellishments

As far as 3-dimensional decorations go, it was small fluffy things all the way. I saw a preponderance of tassels and fur pom poms, especially on shoes and jewelry. I can take them or leave them, and have so far managed to leave them.

Definitely the number-one trend that defined 2017 for me was embroidery, mostly of the floral sort. While it started with a couple of shirts and bras with embroidery patches popping up frequently in my eBay searches, it grew to appear just about everywhere! In addition to being the defining trend for 2017, it's also my favorite, although, being my thrifty and crafty self, I have refrained from buying anything embroidered, in favor of making my own. This has caused me to be a little late to the party, but I'll get there! I promise!

Future trends

Every year, I usually express a couple wishes/predictions for the year ahead. This year, I'm putting my money on flip flops—not beach sandals, which will always have their place (at the beach!), but thong-style sandals (preferably with a platform) to be worn for more everyday and semi-dressy occasions. Dress flip flops are currently totally passé. I was buying heavily discounted pairs in 2011 (sure sign of a decline in their popularity), and had completely eliminated them from my collection by 2016...so that means it's surely time for them to come back! Shower slides were really popular in the late 90's, and flip flops came a few years after. And guess what's pretty popular now? Shower slides! Guess what's coming next! This is not to say I think flip flops will actually rise to ascendancy by the end of 2018, but that it's a good time to stock up if we find a bargain, so our future selves can be ahead of the curve!

Ultra Violet

I am trying to start a tradition. For my first outfit of every new year, I will try to prominently feature Pantone's color of the year. This has proved to be a challenge, since on New Year's Day, I pretty much always feel like wearing nothing more than a warm sweater and some stretchy pants, which does not make for a very blogworthy outfit. Nonetheless, I wore a "Greenery"-esque sweater for 2017, and this year, I'm breaking out the Ultra Violet.

I did not wear it on New Year's Day, because that day was reserved for a pajama brunch, and knowing what you know about my pajama collection, I'm sure you'd understand why I prefer that outfit not get memorialized in photos. But for January second, my triumphant return to both the office and the wearing of nice clothes, after a lazy week-and-a-half holiday, it was Pantone Time!

I had purchased this shirt from Swap.com several months ago; it is one of the many articles in my closet that I haven't yet worn, and I was pretty darn thrilled when I learned in early December that the color of this year was such a perfect match for something new and exciting I already owned. I held it in reserve for the glorious day when it would feature in my first blog post of 2017.

Sadly, when the time came to actually accessorize the shirt for its moment of fame, I found that I didn't have anything else exciting enough to go with it. I wanted to look professional for my first day back to work, so that meant jeans were not an option. I reluctantly chose my slightly-too-large grey slacks to be the unassuming backdrop of this featured color. Fortunately, I have some amethyst jewelry that goes pretty nicely with the shirt, so at least my Ultra Violet outfit was not a one-piece wonder. 

But still, I wasn't content with just a solid purple shirt and an interesting necklace. I wanted a bit of glitz and glamour, which came in the form of my mirrored silver boots. They might be a little too "ultra" and might steal the spotlight from the purple which is the main event, but, hey, it was my first outfit of the new year! I needed it to bring down the house!