Problems, solved

I've got some problems.

One of them is I'm tired of all my winter shirts! I feel like I say that at least once every year, but there's always good reason for it. Among many other bad things about winter clothing, it's just so dreary! My last several shopping runs, I've been searching diligently for warm tops and dresses that are colorful, graphic, and interesting...and I've come up with nothing. Maybe I've snagged a patterned skirt or two, but it seems that the fun prints for upper bodies are reserved exclusively for skimpy summer garments.

Speaking of which, let's talk about those skimpy summer garments, because I have a problem with them too! They are not cute. At least, not on me. Over the past several years, the fashion in sleeveless tops (as with most clothing) has run towards the wide and shapeless. Some girls might be happy draping a tent over their torsos, but I prefer some solid waist definition, lest I look like a particularly billowy telephone pole. The baggy look has been popular for so long, that it's hard for me to find any clothing that flatters my figure, even in the secondhand markets. In fact, I just recently received quite a large hand-me-down collection of tank tops, of which I wanted to keep almost nothing, because it all looked so bad on me. I sadly put a number of otherwise cute tops into my to-sell box over the past month and moved on with my life.

By "moved on with my life," I mean I continued shopping, unsuccessfully, for cheery clothes that I can wear in the winter. As I was scrolling through a sea of depressing solid and striped sweaters on Swap.com, I found myself thinking, "OK, there's nothing wintry that looks fun and cute, but surely I have some fun and cute tank tops I could layer under a cardigan or something." Surely is right...but naturally this solution begets another problem: if I wear my summer tank tops as layering pieces in winter, then I'll be bored with them come summer, and they'll never get to have the top billing they deserve.

In case you've lost count now, I had three problems: 1) winter clothes are boring, 2) wearing my summer clothes in winter would make the summer clothes feel boring, 3) so many summer clothes fit me badly. Once I thought of it like that, the solution to all three problems became obvious. I could wear the ill-fitting summer clothes as bottom layers in winter, because I'd never be able to wear them in summer anyway. When mostly covered by a blazer, even an unflattering tank top looks perfectly acceptable!

With that in mind, I went back through my to-sell box and retrieved two floral camisoles that I'd absolutely loved upon sight, but hated upon trying on. The straps had been too short, the U-shaped bottom hem made me look fat, and the lack of any kind of waistline did not help matters any. They also had these weird half-bras on the inside, which served no purpose but did tend to bunch up and show through the thin fabric. They were terrible when worn alone, but totes adorbz when partially covered!

I tried the lavender cami with a purple cardigan, but the whole outfit looked much better topped off with my grey checked blazer. I guess I'm back in the jacket game, because after a long hiatus, that's the second blazer-topped outfit in a week!

A little footnote: although it was easy enough to hide the frumpy shape of the camisole by wearing another layer over it, its extreme shortness remained an issue. For that, I utilized a technique I learned recently for permanently stretching elasticized materials.

Stretch your straps

To make straps longer, pull them to the limits of their elasticity, and then press firmly with an iron. They should stay more stretched even once they cool. This also is said to work on elastic waistbands and other items that had a bit of stretch already.

When all was ironed and done, I had added about an inch to the length of the straps, which made the whole camisole sit prettier. One more problem solved!

My Fuzzy Valentine

I started planning this year's Valentine's Day outfits back in September, but when the Big Day went from "some far-off occasion" to "this upcoming Friday," I suddenly felt like I hadn't done any preparation at all! I spent most of the past week trying and re-trying different outfit combinations every evening, and was still waffling around last night.

Part of the reason for my indecision was the very recent addition of these shoes into the pool of contenders. They are yet another shoe refresh project that I've been dragging out for months and only finished reupholstering on Sunday (I'll give you the full DIY in a few days). It wasn't until Tuesday that I noticed that their reddish-purple color made them a potential option for Valentine's Day, but once I realized that if I wore them, I could title the resultant blog post, "My Fuzzy Valentine," their fate was sealed (can't help it; I'm addicted to cutesy headlines!).

On Wednesday, I came up with a couple of outfits that used the shoes (mostly involving matching red leggings), but as I lay in bed that night, sleepless with excitement about my upcoming activities and their corresponding getups, I was also ruing the fact that the boots didn't really stand out next to the same-color leggings. It would be better if I could wear them with black pants...but then what to wear on top? I remembered that the fabric I'd used on the boots originally came from a shirt, and the inner layer might still be around and wearable. The next morning, I concluded that the original shirt, while verifiably still around, was definitely not wearable. Fortunately, I had a camisole that was, and was almost the same color!

So all day at work on Thursday, my brain was churning out ideas for different ensembles that could utilize the burgundy camisole. I came up with two, both involving blazers (I've barely touched any of my blazers in over a year, but there's just something about Valentine's Day that inspires me to wear a blazer!). When I got home that evening, I decided on the very businessy black look (as opposed to the jeans-based grey look), and finally had an outfit planned for my suddenly not-so-casual Friday!

Except for one thing. The burgundy booties and camisole weren't really red or pink enough to truly channel the holiday spirit. A few more romantic touches were required, and I knew just the trick!

I made a pair of bows in a matching color, and fixed them to the shoes with tiny strips of Velcro.
Make your embellishments temporary by attaching them with something removable, like Velcro! Then, as an afterthought, with just two hours to go til bedtime, I sewed on some silver heart charms so that they dangled from the bows. Now the shoes were real fuzzy Valentines! 

Lest anyone miss the subtle detailing on my boots, I added a few more hearts to my look in the form of a necklace and some stud earrings. I also re-dyed my hair red and curled it for the occasion. As they say, love is in the hair!

How to make slacks and a button-down fun

Ahh, the button-down shirt and pair of slacks! It's the signature look of office workers everywhere. It's tried and true, always appropriate, but...rarely is it interesting.

Still, if you are consigned to a business casual dress code, there's no reason you have to be resigned to it! There are many things you can do to spice up your workaday clothes, and today I'm exploring a few of them: a cheery color palette, exciting accessories, and a secret theme!

The basis of this outfit is a white button-down blouse and a pair of sage green pants so desaturated they could almost pass for grey. Dull, dull, dull! If this was all I wore to work, I'd cry. And then I'd die of boredom.

Fortunately, the shirt is sleeveless, which means it practically requires something to be worn over it, which means I get an opportunity to play with a cheery color palette! In a particularly formal office, you might go with a blazer, but for most workplaces, a sweater will be sufficient. For my purposes today, I wore a tie-front cardigan in absinthe-green (Pro Tip: When struggling against boredom with your outfit, conjure up fun associations by thinking of the colors in terms of alcoholic drinks!). The green sweater was a great complement to the slightly green pants, so I decided to carry on the tradition with olive green shoes.

Now, it is time to turn our attention towards exciting accessories! While your pants-and-a-shirt outfit is conservative by nature, there are no such limitations on the kind of ornaments you can throw on top. Scarves, jewelry, hair accessories, belts—all of these things and more can be used to add a little oomph to your appearance, and with such a plain backdrop as your clothes, you can afford to make these accessories over-the-top.

For this outfit, the lines of my cardigan and blouse lent themselves well to a long necklace. I searched in vain for the perfect pendant, when I remembered I have this tiered heart necklace that perfectly coordinated with the other greens in the ensemble! At this point, I was wearing so much green that it wouldn't have been a bad thing to pick a necklace in a contrasting hue, but there was a particular reason that the heart necklace was the best choice.

And what was that reason? Why, none other than the secret theme! This is the final way you can have a little fun with fashion while still wearing your boring cubicle uniform.  

 

On my sweater, the open knit forms little heart-shaped holes running in rows down the surface, so my theme had to be hearts. The little holes are easy to overlook, but that's what makes the theme a secret! Sure, it's pretty obvious when I'm wearing both a heart necklace and matching earrings, but still...even a blatant theme becomes more fun when there's a little reward for the observant hidden elsewhere in the outfit. There's no reason that a theme needs to be as literal as a graphic motif. You could choose something more subtle, like "vertical ribbing," or a theme that only has meaning to you...like clothes you got on vacation, or gifts from someone you love.

Whatever you choose, building your outfit with some guiding principles can make it a little more gratifying to wear...even when, to a casual observer, it only looks like slacks and a button-down.

So much to say

I have so many talking points on my outfit today! Are you ready for an epic read? Here we go!

1. Skirts in winter

In yet another sign of my gradual succumbing-to-wimpiness as I get older (the first was my admission that I now prefer low heels to high ones), I have almost completely given up on wearing skirts in the winter. When I first started my job, 10 out of my 18 outfits in the month of January featured a dress or skirt. This January, all of my work outfits that I can remember have included pants (and if I did wear a dress, it was with comfy leggings underneath!). Almost every time I reached into a closet and pulled out a dress or skirt (from my much smaller selection than last year), I put it back again with a cringe, thinking how complicated it is to wear a skirt in cold weather.

You basically have 4 choices:

1. Wear the skirt with nothing on your legs and freeze.
2. Wear the skirt with tall boots and freeze less—a challenge lately since the winds of fashion have been blowing towards low boots
3. Wear the skirt with leggings and deal with loads of static cling
4. Wear the skirt with tights or pantyhose, and deal with marginally less static cling, but instead have to deal with pantyhose!

None of these choices are very great, so usually I just pick Option 5: Wear pants.

But I'm back to doing One New Thing a Day with my winter clothes, and One of my remaining New Things was this lavender midi skirt.

2. This skirt

I purchased this skirt on September 9th, and it is no reflection of my lack of love for it that I haven't yet worn it. In fact, I'm not sure why I haven't worn it, other than the fact that it's winter! But this skirt is a fine specimen of skirt. Although the tags look like it was made in the 80's at the latest, it is still in great condition. Although the sizing is petite, meaning it runs the risk of being too short, its hem actually hits my legs at that most flattering point where my calves narrow below the knee. And while I initially worried it was too tight around the waist, it still buttons (thank goodness for the elasticized waistband!), and the rest of it skims my body like it was made just for me!

I have to alter at least half of my new clothes just to make them look decent, so it is a rare treat to get something new that looks perfect with absolutely no tailoring! And it's a good thing it didn't need tailoring, because that half-pleated trumpet silhouette would have been ghastly to work around! But since it is a perfect fit, it's the perfect skirt! It reminds me of something Kate Middleton would wear. The question now is, can I style it to be worthy of its royal connotations?

3. This outfit

Upon examination of my closet, I realized there were plenty of tops I could wear with this skirt, but they were all more or less the same, in that they were all a single solid color. I'm not much into wearing solid colors when I can wear graphics instead, so maybe that's another reason I haven't been wearing this skirt. However, given the lack of other options, I eventually settled on a plain cream sweater.

Although I would have liked to keep my legs warm in a pair of boots, one of my least favorite outfit formulas is solid-color top + different-solid-color bottom + different-solid-color boots. All those colors stacked on top of each other make you look like a striped flag! I had to settle for a neutral pair of pumps. Hello, frozen legs! I brought a pair of sheer ivory hose to work with me, but when I got to the office, I just couldn't stomach the idea of wearing nylons all day. I went with bare legs and a space heater! To further mitigate the striped-flag look, I decided to use a scarf to transcend the borders between strips of color.

4. This scarf

By far the most well-used scarf in my sizable collection, this butterfly scarf has been an essential part of my personal style since 2013. I wear it as a belt, as a head wrap, as a shawl in the summer, and, today, as a regular scarf in the winter. And this in spite of its very seasonally inappropriate motif! Or perhaps because of it—wearing spring themes in winter is a favorite subversive pleasure of mine.

Today I'm practicing a new way of tying the scarf at the neck—the figure 8. I made sure it had uneven tails so that the asymmetry would make it appear more jaunty, and so that one of them would dangle far enough to overlap my skirt. When wearing two different-color items on top and on bottom, literally connect the two with a vertical line—such as a scarf or vest. The physical link will help them seem more related. Striped-flag look? Not today!

How to wear neon yellow hair

Let's just jump right in and answer that burning question that I'm sure you were all wondering about: what do you wear with neon yellow hair?

The answer is simple—a neon yellow sweater!

The question of why I have neon yellow hair and a neon yellow sweater is a little more complicated to answer. If you don't already know, I'm not a big fan of fluorescent colors, so to be featuring them in both my hair and my clothing is more than a little out of character for me. But it can all be explained—I promise.

In November, I made a Swap.com order that included what I thought was a green sweater. In the photo, it looked to be a muted poison green—rather along the lines of my long-retired witchy skirt, or a slightly darker hue than my springtimey polo shirt. I was wrong. It was a saturated, eye-popping, neon chartreuse, almost more yellow than green. My first instinct was to return it, but everything else about the sweater was perfect, and sometimes I just don't want to abuse the return policy lest they take it away from me. So I kept the sweater and vowed to get at least a few uses from it before listing it on eBay.

Now to explain the hair. While my hair has been cycling between blonde and pastel shades of purple and pink for over a year now, I have been steering clear of intense color since I dyed it dark green in 2016. At this point in my life, subtlety (or at least, subtlety by Unfashionista standards!) seems like the right approach. After several months rocking the pale coral color, the next phase in the evolution of my coiffure was to be a light orange-yellow gradient. I usually buy cheap-beauty-supply-shop hair color, but because I had a very specific yellow tone in mind, I splurged on a jar of Manic Panic. I diluted it 1:1 with white conditioner, then added in some water to help the mixture go farther. I washed it off just a few minutes after I was done putting it on, thinking that so short a dye time, combined with all the dilution, would reduce the color's intensity to equal the faded orange hue left at my hair's tips. Again, I was wrong. After rinsing, my hair came out just as described on the bottle: electric banana.

Well, this was not what I intended! But after years of cutting and dyeing my own hair, I'm used to disappointing myself. What I get is very rarely what I planned...but what I've noticed is that no matter how much I hate what I've done to my hair, someone else is guaranteed to love it! So I run with it. I re-dyed the bottom half a darker orange so that the yellow wouldn't be totally overpowering, and strutted my stuff. Sure enough, I got a compliment on the new color within a day.

The thing with neon is, it is made to be noticed. To do your neon hair justice, you really have to coordinate it to your outfit much more intentionally than you can get away with when your hair color is pastel. One way to accomplish this is to wear it with all black, all white, or both, so that the hair is clearly the focal point of the outfit. That's what I did on my first day with neon hair. But by the second day, my need for colored clothes was clawing to get out! The only remaining solution was...more neon!

Fortunately, the aforementioned overly bright sweater was almost the exact same color as my hair. Problem solved, with surprisingly little effort!

Saturated colors go best with other saturated colors or "pure" neutrals – white or black. So I turned to black for my pants and shoes.

The shoes are another thing that's out of character for me. I prefer a more refined look on my feet even when the rest of my outfit is casual, so I rarely wear athletic shoes outside the gym, and almost never at work. But everyone needs a pair of basic black sneakers (for airport shoes, if nothing else!), so I got these Reeboks on Black Friday. Of course, I couldn't settle for truly basic black (I'm not an animal!), so these have a shiny finish and faceted texture just to keep things interesting.

They were interesting enough that I thought them worth pushing the boundaries of my personal dress code for. Why not play around with sporty shoes and out-there hair? There's never been a better day for it than Friday Funday!

Half and Half

One of the earliest Style Tips I shared in my blog was "Never wear a shirt that is the same length as your skirt. It will make you look short." Replace the "shirt" and "skirt" with the more generic "top" and "bottoms," and you have an all-purpose rule that you can live by!

And yet, I'm blatantly breaking that rule today...because, I've found a new tip that supersedes this rule and completely changes the game! But before I reveal it, a story.

Yesterday, I didn't have much time to plan today's outfit. I was out celebrating my boyfriend's birthday and running errands for most of the day. By the time I got home, I was too tired to do anything more than grab a shirt and some pants out of my closet and crawl into bed.

But when I woke up in the morning, I realized my mistake. I'd chosen a long pair of pants that I could only wear with high heels. After walking around all day on my wedge boots on Friday, and spending much of Sunday in 5-inch stilettos, my metatarsal bones were barking! There was no way I was wearing anything but flats today!

Unfortunately, the only pair of trousers that both matched the shirt, and was short enough to wear with flats, was my trusty old cigarette pants...which are exactly the same length as the shirt! Code violation!

What to do, what to do? Well, the obvious solution was to just wear the combo anyway and stop worrying about it. So I'd spend a day at work looking slightly dumpy. Worse things have happened.

But fortunately, a better answer occurred to me. I'd use my shoes to visually elongate my legs! Normally, I do this by putting on a pair of high heels, but since heels were off the table for today, I'd have to apply a couple of useful principles, which I'm now sharing as a When your shoes are the same color as your pants, they will visually continue the line of your legs and make them look longer. In a similar vein, shoes with a pointed toe will make your foot look longer. Combine the two and you will have legs for days!

I've historically waffled on the topic of pointed-toe shoes. On the one hand, they do look more elegant than round or square toes. On the other hand, they pinch, and also make your feet look longer, which is usually not desirable. I eventually did decide to buy some this year, which was fortunate, because sometimes (like when you are wearing awkwardly short pants), longer feet is just what your look needs!

Twistday

For the Tuesday of my Week of Wordplay, I could have gone for the low-hanging fruit and employed a "Twos" theme, with two of everything. But that might get too "two," if you know what I mean...and if you don't, I mean I'd probably get hot wearing two layers on every part of my body. Fortunately, I came up with a much better word that not only puts a twist on the normal pronunciation of Tuesday, but also, plain and simple, is a twist. It's Twistday!

I have several garments that feature twists in their construction, but the one I chose for today was this dark jade green sheath dress with a twisted neckline. This was one of the many frocks I purchased in my Great Wedding Dress Hunt of 2018. When I hadn't worn it by the end of the summer, I decided it would make a great layering dress for the fall, so I kept it around even though it was sleeveless.

That made it the perfect choice for today's outfit, because I was conducting a training session at work and needed to wear something suitable. A classic sheath dress, in my opinion, is the ideal silhouette for looking professional at a meeting. The fact that it had no sleeves would also enable me to layer up with a cardigan—not only one more potential source of thematic twists, but also something that I could jettison easily mid-day. Since I tend to get hot while public speaking, and the climate in our conference room is notoriously fickle, it would be a good day to come prepared for a wide range of thermal possibilities.

Unfortunately, my cardigan collection, while it now takes up a full fourth of my huge wardrobe, was entirely lacking in twisty things. I had to get creative with one of my waterfall cardigans, folding the front portion around to just under the armpit twice and sewing it in place. This not only produced the requisite twist, but also made the sweater look more appropriately sized for my body.

With two twists in my look, I could have called it quits, but I still had more ideas! I donned a pair of tiny gold twisted wreath earrings ( One of my many rules of dressing for meetings is to not wear any jewelry that will jiggle around your face distractingly while you're talking, so I had to forgo my signature giant dangle earrings and stick to the basics today), and, last but not least, clipped up my hair in two side twists.

There's so much blur, you can't really see the detail in the earrings,
but trust me; the twist is there!

Why I chose such a high-maintenance 'do when I knew I was going to spend 2 hours in the public eye with no chance to adjust it, I'll never know, but I got compliments on both the style and the color, so I guess it didn't turn out too bad (even though I needed to correct it two times to get it presentable for my 10:00 training!)

I wasn't crazy about the black leggings and boots that finished off my look, but with such a short dress, plus highs in the low 40's, I wasn't about to leave my legs uncovered. At least I can say that the boots kind of represent a twist with their lace-up detail. You can't have laces without twisting them a little, right?

No Repeats

One of the principles that guide  my fashion life is that of consistent inconsistency. I won't wear the same main color two days in a row, I won't wear the same main garment type two days in a row, I won't wear the same shoes two days in a row. Anything that is more noticeable than a basic staple has to have a rest period (varying from a week to a couple months, depending on just how noticeable it is) before I wear it again. If I can remember ever wearing a certain combination of clothes, I really, strongly hesitate to wear them together again. Ever.

Fortunately, I don't have great recall (Usually I struggle to remember what I wore one day prior), so I can happily re-wear a lot of outfits since I forget them in the meantime...but once I blog one of my outfits, it's game over. The photographic evidence is out in public, proving that it's been done before. Which makes me even less likely to forget other non-blogged outfits, featuring the same primary items. Even this usually isn't a problem, because I tend to retire most of my clothes after 2-3 years, so then I don't need to worry about re-wearing them any more. But there are some garments that I am loath to part with.

One example is this blue and white caftan top. It's a funny thing for me to want to keep, as it's not really terribly flattering on my body (tending to accentuate my broad shoulders and make me appear top-heavy), but I just can't resist its inherent versatility! It's got the perfect sleeve style for a transitional-weather-day like today, where it's too cool for summer clothes, but anything too wintry would make me feel stifled. It's loose and breathable, but provides ample coverage against a chill in the still air. And also, I really just like the pattern!

The problem is that since I've had it for 3 summers and some change, I've basically run out of new ways to style it. I've worn it with black leggings; I've worn it with white pants; I've worn it with navy blue pants; I've worn it outside my color comfort zone and paired it with yellow shoes. Since I'm incurably matchy-matchy in my personal style, you know that once I start adding bold accent colors, I'm running out of ideas.

But today I wanted to wear it again. And I needed a novel color pairing for it.

To choose this color, I used a technique that I might as well give a name—we'll call it Stare & Pair.

Stare & Pair—the catchy name for a technique that probably doesn't need one!

Simply take the piece that you want to find a mate for (in this case, it was my blue & white sweater), and set it down as close as possible to the collection of candidates for pairing with it (in this example, my stack of colored skinny jeans). Then allow yourself to take in the whole picture, all the colors and possibilities, and just gaze unfocusedly. At some point, your eyes should be drawn to one candidate in particular. In this example, it was my purple jeans. There's really no difference between this technique and just trying on tons of outfits in sequence, except it takes a lot less time!

So I'd selected a new and untried color of pants to wear with the sweater. Great!

The next step was finding the third piece—the accessory or shoe or jewelry to finish everything off. I used the Stare & Pair method to narrow my options down to a couple pieces of lavender jewelry. That was a rather exciting development, because it introduced a new layer of complexity into my color palette! If I were to wear lavender jewelry, that meant I could also wear lavender shoes, which would be much more interesting than the white or blue I almost always combine with this shirt.

By the time the outfit was completely assembled, I was pretty delighted. Usually my first wear of an article of clothing is also the most inspired, and all my subsequent outfits go downhill from there. But in all the years I've been wearing this caftan top, this new combination of clothing is probably my favorite! Sometimes, refusing to allow yourself an outfit repeat can really have unexpected benefits!

How to wear pajama pants to work

The latest acquisition in my collection of novelty pants is this silky paisley number. Calling it silky is perhaps a bit generous because, while it might have once been silky, age has reduced its rayon fabric to a very soft, almost flannel-like texture. With its loose fit and drawstring-tied elastic waist, this pair of pants looks suspiciously like a pajama bottom.

But is it? The brand (Solemio) seems to have been (their Facebook page indicates they might have gone out of business in 2016) primarily focused on ultra-trendy clubwear, not loungewear. Usually pajama bottoms aren't made out of rayon, and these pants are. They're also unusually long (such that I have to wear heels to keep them off the ground, even with them hiked all the way up to my waist), which would be highly impractical for clothes meant to be worn with slippers. I think it's more likely that these pants were much more glamorous at one time in their past, and have just been "broken in" to the point where they'd be best described as "cozy."

But once a dress pant, always a dress pant, is my philosophy which I only just invented now. So how do I wear these particular dress pants to the office and be assured that they won't be mistaken for the pajamas I forgot to take off when I left home in the morning?

To make any pair of pants look a little more professional, wear a button-down blouse on top. There's something so serious about a traditional pointed collar and a row of buttons down the front, that any outfit featuring them simply can't be construed as too casual.

Today I smartened up my flowy pants with a fuchsia sleeveless blouse (one of the many I removed the puffed sleeves from). I also took my own advice and wore pointed-toe pumps to look more sophisticated, rather than the round-toe mary janes that were my first choice. Finally, I had to do something about the drawstring. It is the rare pair of pants that can have a drawstring waist and still be taken seriously outside the bedroom or locker room, and this pair is not that pair! Fortunately, the fix was simple. I just tucked the drawstring out of sight into the waistband. With the blouse over the top, you can't tell it was ever there!

With these tricks in my employ, I feel like I was able to make these lazy-day pants look acceptable for the office. Someone who saw me in the bathroom told me she liked my pants. In fact, she said they were great, so at least they got one Stranger Stamp of Approval. What do you think? Would you ever wear pajama-like pants to the office?

Hello, High-Low

Today was Friday Funday, and that means I was duty-bound to come up with a work outfit that's a little more casual and a lot more playful than what I wear the rest of the week. Of all Fridays, today it was especially important to not fail in this endeavor, because my boyfriend and I were going to happy hour directly after work, and I wanted to impress his friends with my totally laid-back-but-uniquely-chic fashion sense! No big deal, right?

I lie! It's a very big deal! So big that I took a few hours off this morning so I could come up with the perfect work-to-drinks outfit (well, also so I could catch up on sleep, buy myself a little me-time in the midst of a very hectic few days, and pick up some furniture I was unable to pick up last night because of the aforementioned hectic-ness). Those few hours of relative relaxation produced not only a splendid monochromatic ensemble, but also a fine trip down Memory Lane, and a couple of tips & tricks to boot!

Our first stop on Memory Lane takes us back to 2012, courtesy of the skirt, which is a classic specimen of the high-low trend that really hit full steam that year. You might recall, my initial opinion of this type of skirt was unfavorable, but a lot can change in 6 years! For one thing, I decided there was no point in calling them "hi-lo" skirts when there were two perfectly good English words to serve the same purpose. But, more importantly, once I got over my weird idea that high-low skirts make your knees look ugly, I grew to accept and embrace the trend pretty quickly. Good for me, because now that the fashion cycle has run its course, it is possible to buy high-low skirts for next to nothing (I got this one for 1.80$)! That's not to say that they are completely out-of-date yet; you can still find new ones in stores, but they much more often tend to be wrapped, ruffled, asymmetric, or generally more complex than this humble mullet skirt.

Let's now consider the color scheme of today's outfit, which takes us a little further down Memory Lane to February 2015, when I wore basically the same colors for "My Future Valentine," again with a burgundy skirt on the bottom and pastel pink on the top. What has changed? The season of course, but also the length of the skirt. That day in 2015 was, I think, the very last time I wore a skirt that skimpy to the office. I remember feeling very uncomfortable and deciding, once and for all, that I would set a minimum length for all my future skirts.

I feel like I should be able to bend over as far as I want without accidentally showing my undies, so that became my new, and still current, rule for skirt lengths. This is where high-low skirts come in very handy—they enable one to wear a (partial) short skirt (generally more flattering and less dowdy) while simultaneously being able to bend over to my heart's content without revealing anything! This burgundy one is the first high-low skirt I've acquired (though not the first high-low dress), but I foresee them playing a much bigger role in my life as they saturate the secondhand market!

So we've visited 2012, we've stopped off in 2015, what's next? How about 2016, where the legacy of my shoes began? You see, in 2016, I acquired a pair of pink glitter jelly sandals that simply set my heart on fire! I wore them once or twice that year, but the following summer, I took them out of storage to find they had developed a terrible stink. I washed them in every kind of chemical imaginable, but I couldn't get the odor out. Eventually, I washed them in ammonia, which not only failed to get out the odor, but also turned the plastic cloudy and ugly, so finally I gave up. I replaced them with these: slightly inferior, but still pink and glittery, flat jelly sandals.

Since we're traveling forward in time, I might mention that the first time I wore the shirt in this outfit was last summer, but it's not that important. What is important is how I styled the shirt. 

To get it to look good with the skirt, I had to give it the old quarter-tuck. 

"The old what?" you say. That's right, I've never mentioned it in my blog before, but it's an indispensable technique for making a single shirt do double-duty. As it has become one of my most tried-and-true styling techniques (and, as this has already become an irredeemably verbose blog post!) I might as well finally get around to explaining how to use it.

The half- and quarter-tuck

The half-tuck is a simple way to wear your shirt so it's tucked in in the front and loose in the back. There are so many reasons why you might want to try half-tucking your shirt!

1. It raises your shirt's hemline, thus showing more of your pants, thus adding apparent length to your legs.
2. It simultaneously allows you to keep a sleek waistline by avoiding the side-pooch that comes with tucking your shirt in at the sides.
3. It helps prevent your pants from being seen through your shirt, as would be the case if you wear a too-thin shirt on the outside of your pants (that's why I tucked the shirt in this outfit)
4. It can help define your waist, which might be hidden when leaving a baggy shirt completely untucked
5. It keeps the bulk of your shirt outside of your pants, thus avoiding any interior bunching, lumps, and bumps, that would come from having a shirt completely tucked.

The half-tuck's edgier sibling is the quarter-tuck, which is basically tucking in only one side of the front of your shirt, usually resulting in an asymmetrical angle to the hemline. I find the quarter-tuck works well on shirts (such as this pink one) that already have some asymmetrical details.

Fashionistas have been wearing their shirts this way for ages—I first tried the half-tuck myself in 2015— but now, as I understand, it has been thrown into the mainstream by being dubbed the "French tuck" on a popular Netflix show. I just call it the half-tuck because I have never watched Queer Eye and don't intend to adopt a new terminology just because someone on that show allegedly uses it.

So now that I have reached the absolute present in my journey through fashion history (and I mean absolute—the word "French tuck" just exploded in the media within the past week!), it is time to bid you adieu. I hope that you have enjoyed this rambling discourse on what was, is, and will be, as well as my undoubtedly valuable instructions on how to wear your clothes...but in case you have not, I hope you at least enjoy this cute picture of a dog!

This is how the Unfashionista does subtlety

If you were to do no more than glance over this blog, you'd probably figure out pretty quickly that I love to dress to be noticed. Splashy designs, unusual silhouettes, and bright colors galore, that's the name of my game!

But even I have to trade in my flashy attire for something a little more subtle at times. Times like meetings!

Last week, I was invited to attend a meeting at work. I actually hardly ever have formal meetings, but when I do, I prefer to wear my most businesslike clothing and save the experimental stuff for another more solitary day. This meeting was not just any meeting, though. It was a large gathering of influential people, all brought together to share opinions which would ultimately determine the fate of our collective website—which is my livelihood. I didn't have an active role at this meeting, as I was only there to observe and learn, but as the entire agenda centered around my life's work, I wanted to make a good showing.

That meant looking professional and presentable, but not standing out like a sore thumb. My aim was to be a fly on the wall, not a fly buzzing incessantly around people's eyeballs. So I very reluctantly planned my outfit to go under the radar. A classic silhouette was paramount. I settled on this wrap dress, which I have never featured in my blog, despite owning it for longer than I can remember. It's a little plain for my usual tastes, but it's still indisputably one of my most useful dresses. The knee length walks that perfect line between revealing and dowdy. The wrapped waist gives it a little dimensionality, and also means I can make it fit me to a tee or loosen it up depending on my mood. The small black and white pattern looks like a neutral solid from a distance, but it is a pattern, which means it's slightly less boring. And lastly, the very low neckline makes it ideal for layering.

Yes, in spite of initially aiming more for pea hen than peacock, I could not resist adding a few flourishes.

The secret to dressing unobtrusively while simultaneously not dying of boardroom boredom is to wear fun shoes. They won't distract anyone while hidden under the conference table, but there they are, ready to steal the show only when you're standing (i.e. social hour has begun).

Since the weather's too cold for bare legs, and I can't stand the thought of wearing tights, I was limited to knee-high boots, and I only own two pairs of colored knee high boots. I decided on the blue ones.

Naturally, I that meant that the pop of color under my collar also had to be blue.

Yes, a pop of color. As you can see, I was completely unsuccessful in silencing my inner peacock, and even after adding the blue shoes and the blue camisole, I still needed more. I needed...a brooch! It just so happened that my two-toned blue floral pin went perfectly with the rest of my outfit, and it was the ideal type of accessory for the look I was going for. It's small and somewhat old-fashioned but still quirky and fun—a non-threatening way to add just a hint of flair. What better way to show that you mean business, but you don't really mean business? Hmmm...there might be other ways.

I was pleased as punch with my sartorial choices for the meeting, but I soon realized the error of my ways. I had neglected to consider the physics of a wrap skirt. The whole time I was at the table, I was constantly adjusting my skirt to keep the layers from gaping open.

Unless you're keen on showing a lot of thigh, a wrap skirt is best saved for occasions when you'll be mostly standing or have something covering your lap.

Lesson learned.

Frumpiness fix

At the beginning of the day that I wore it (I'm a little behind in posting, so that was not today!) this outfit was one of my ordinary old work outfits that are so unremarkable, I never give them a moment's second thought. Even if the colors are bright and fun, the individual elements have been worn enough times that they no longer excite me. The one new part of this outfit was the pink cardigan, which is a fairly recent acquisition. Unfortunately, the long-line cardigan combined with the calf-length skirt to create a total appearance that was shapeless and dowdy. High-heeled shoes usually help make a midi skirt more flattering, but the chunky heel on these ones might have hurt more than helped.

I wasn't going to blog this outfit at all, except that midway through the day, I discovered a styling trick that improved its appearance so greatly, I had to share it!

Looking at my blocky shape in the mirror, with the cardigan billowing out around me like an extra 20 pounds of flesh, I suddenly realized that I'd look more streamlined if I just defined my waist. I tied the dangling front parts of the cardigan around my midsection, and the improvement was instant! Suddenly I felt proud of my appearance again!

Tie baggy clothes around your waist to create a knotted belt and a more streamlined silhouette! 

Looking normal

I have no shortage of sleeveless button-downs, because basically all of my short-sleeved blouses eventually become one (and yes, this blouse originally had short sleeves too), but I don't consider them my most fashionable of garments. Something about a sleeveless button-down screams "soccer mom!!"—not typically the look I go for—but for some reason, I'm really proud of today's simple outfit featuring one. Maybe it's because I look so unapologetically soccer-mom-ish, I become a fashion statement in myself.

Just look at me in my suburban-outdoorsy blouse that tries to be practical yet cute, fitted yet comfortable, and adult yet playful, all at the same time! Just check out my unpretentious (and un-trendy) pedal-pushers! Have a good long gander at those sensible sandals with their sturdy ankle buckle and low, walking-friendly rise! Heck, how about my haircut—the low-maintenance, unstyled chin-length bob, perennial favorite among busy moms everywhere?

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Does this all point to one thing? Have I finally embraced normcore?

Of course I have! It's a trend that's past its prime! Perfect time for an Unfashionista to pick up on it!

Just kidding! The truth is, the Unfashionista hasn't been feeling too well lately, and her energy levels have basically hit rock bottom. Items usually at the top of my priority list (such as picking out the world's best outfit every night) have taken a backseat to those necessary for survival (such as going to bed at 9pm). I dragged this outfit from my closet this morning, cringing from a headache, and proceeded to throw it on and bike (very slowly) right to work.

And yet I don't think I look under the weather, and that's quite an accomplishment! I may not look like the paragon personal style I aspire to be, but looking like a chipper housewife isn't a bad second place.

In short, No matter how bad you feel, simple pants and a fitted top can always make you look like a million bucks—or at least a solid 60,000 in the bank and a new SUV in the driveway.

Working it at work

I don't much care for dressing professionally, and my definition of "business casual" skews heavily to the casual, but this outfit is one I feel would have met the dress code at most offices. 

Maybe the person whose mission in life lately is "pushing our casual dress code to the limits," is not the best person to trust when it comes to choosing your office attire, but this is the kind of stuff I would try to wear every day if I weren't permitted the regular indulgence of jeans at work. 

First off, though it is anchored by a pair of modest (some might say slightly too big) black trousers, the top is bright red satin to satisfy my love for color.

Though the shoes are flat and modest, they are decorated with huge embroidered flowers to satisfy my need for imagery.

While I am wearing a button-up blouse (my very definition of office dress), it doesn't have any sleeves! (I did that, of course—it was one of the many puff-sleeve blouses that I've put under the knife). I always feel a little better, a little more free, when nothing is covering my arms.

So am I casual or professional? Conservative or artsy? Well, the blazer settles it!

What blazer? Well, during the day, during a freezing meeting, I covered up with a grey checked blazer, which I forgot to take a picture of, of course, but just look at this old blog post of it and imagine it on top of what I'm wearing now. It definitely could not get more businesslike than that. 

Which brings me to my philosophy of professional dressing in a nutshell! When in doubt, throw on a blazer!

Reboot

Today's post is a tale of how I turned two subpar pairs of shoes into some slightly better but still less-than-stellar pairs of shoes!

In it, you will learn:

• How to turn tall boots into booties
• How to shorten an unnecessarily long zipper
• How to make fabric boots fit tighter

How to turn tall boots into booties

Let's start with the pair you saw a month ago, in my "Refashioned" outfit.

They started out a pair of mid-calf boots that began peeling and flaking almost the first time I wore them. I tried to disguise some of the bare spots with a similar color of paint, but by two autumns, they were too ugly to wear.

However, since it was mostly the shaft of the boot that was damaged, and since ankle boots seem to be especially popular this winter, I thought I'd give them a second chance at life.

The shaft was constructed from a different piece of material as the upper of the boot, so I left the uppers intact and just cut off all but about an inch of the shaft.

There was a pleather outer layer and a fabric liner layer. I folded the outer layer down to get it out of the way, then cut off the inner layer (here seen sticking up) at that height.

I used my E6000 glue, and folded the outer layer over to the inside of the inner layer.

To get the fabric to lay flat, I had to cut a few notches in it at various points around the perimeter. 

I clamped it with binder clips while waiting for it to dry.

The finished product shows some imperfections (and boy, is the glued area itchy!) but I'll be happy enough to use these boots for at least one more season.

How to shorten an unnecessarily long zipper

Next up! My thigh-high brown fabric boots. I've had these for a couple years as well (since May of 2014, to be exact) but I've never been extremely happy with the fit.

I only have one clear picture of them in their pre-altered state, and in that one you can see that the zipper – somewhat inexplicably – goes almost up to the knee, despite the boots being made of a stretch fabric with plenty of room for the fattest of feet. If you know anything about zippers, you know that they tend to bunch and bulge, and the zipper on these boots made me look rather like I was walking around on a set of troll legs. 

For years, I put up with it because I was afraid of altering the boots in a way that would damage them, but finally this fall, I decided to take the plunge.

I used my seam ripper to remove the zipper from all but the bottom 6 inches. 

Then I carefully closed up the opening with my sewing machine. Sewing the inside of boots is really difficult, so this time I decided to take the easy way out and make a modified French seam. I just turned the raw edges to the inside, and then sewed over them on the outside. My seam is quite a bit uneven, but it still looks better than it did before!

Once I was certain I wouldn't need the zipper any more, I cut it off at the top of the ankle and hand-stitched the top of it closed.

The finished product

The zipper was repaired, but there was still a problem—the boots wouldn't stay up!

I'd previously sewn the inside of the back seam to create a narrower shaft (one reason I know it's difficult to sew the inside of boots!), but there was still a good bit of slack which I didn't necessarily want to lose (I might want to wear these boots over jeans which would require them to be a bit looser, and also the slouchy look helps disguise my unrefined sewing).

My solution: hidden rubber bands!

How to make fabric boots tighter

This is a reversible no-sew solution to a common problem!

Put a safety pin into one side of the boot (on the inside), pinning over one side of a rubber band. Then do the same thing on the other side.

Now there's a rubber band running right across the top of the boot shaft.

When you put the boot on, make sure the whole rubber band goes behind your leg,* taking up some of the slack and elasticizing the top of the boot. It makes the shaft fit tighter, and the rubber adds a little bit of friction to help keep it from sliding down! 

You can adjust the fit by moving the safety pins. Put them closer to the front of the boot to make it tighter, or move them closer to the back to make it looser.

Success! My boot is staying put!

This isn't a perfect solution; I still experience some sliding even after tightening the fit on both boots. But it does delay the process, forcing you to tug at your boots slightly less often!

*Before I figured out a better way, I used to poke my leg right through the middle of the rubber band, but as you can imagine, wrapping a standard rubber band around your thigh is not always comfortable and resulted in a lot of broken rubber bands. So I don't recommend that.