I'm with the Lonely Hearts Club Band

On Saturday, I was invited to a 1960's/Sergeant-Pepper's-Lonely-Hearts-Club-Band-themed party. That's a mouthful, but more importantly, it's a challenge! How to dress to meet the theme and to do it well enough to win a contest (which I'd heard would be happening)? I didn't know, but I was going to try!

I knew my friend, who was hosting, was planning to dress as Paul McCartney from the cover of said Beatles album, and she was encouraging attendees to dress as other band members. I came very close to going that route, until I noticed this quite 1960's minidress in my closet. Yes, I do wear 60's minidresses as regular clothes. When I wear this one, I usually pair it with pants—it's very mini.

But for a 60's party, I felt I could get away with wearing it over opaque tights, which are another classic look of the decade. I was very fortunate that all the essentials for this costume/outfit were already in my wardrobe. I had my pick of tights in several shades of pink, or white, or ivory. For footwear, I figured I'd wear a pair of pink Mary Jane shoes, which seemed fairly period-appropriate. Fairly, but not quite. When I'm doing retro fashion interpretations, I am really hard on myself if I feel my look isn't historically accurate, and the 3.5-inch heel on my Mary Janes just felt too high for the vibe of the sixties.

So I decided I should look into buying a pair of go go boots (so mod!). The lowest prices were in the high 20's, and those were for eBay auctions that were likely to end at a higher price. If I wanted some go go boots, I was probably going to have to fork over at least 35 dollars—way above my usual budget!  I wrestled with myself for a while, but then I decided to take the plunge. A splurge is worth it if it means winning a costume contest, right? Fortunately, I never did have to justify a splurge to myself. Right before I was about to bid on a 30$-plus auction for some white boots, I ran my search one more time. This time, I hit the jackpot—a silver pair of go go boots with free shipping, for only $6.47! Yeah, baby, yeah!

These boots also have a 3-inch heel, but since the style is otherwise quintessentially 60's, I felt better about the overall look.

Now on to hair and accessories! For earrings and makeup, I looked to Twiggy, fashion icon of the era, as my literal model. Her signature look back in her heyday was huge, overly made-up eyes with multiple pairs of false lashes, plus painted-on lashes on the lower lid. I only have one pair of false lashes, but I did my best, and managed to paint on a decent set of lower lashes after only four attempts!

Huge, glossy dangle earrings seemed like the best jewelry choice, but I didn't really have any in my collection that fit the bill. What I did have, was a sizable collection of Sculpey. I made my own pair of huge heart earrings (another nod to the theme!) and then painted them with silver nail polish, to match the boots. I hung them from extra-long hooks so they would be visible below the bottom of my hair.

Speaking of hair, I was going to attempt it: the big, voluminous, 1960's bouffant with flipped ends! This was of course a bad idea, since my hair does only one thing well: hang straight down. Even after spending the whole day in giant curlers, teasing the roots to within an inch of their life, and spraying it with more hairspray than I have ever employed, I could only manage a limp approximation of the oversized 'do. Well, at least I got the flipped ends halfway decent.

Here we are in a very retro Polaroid!

With that, my costume was done, but I still had time to help my boyfriend with his. I suggested he go for a John Lennon look, since I happen to have a pair of round-lens glasses. To go with it, I suggested he wear a shiny red Indonesian shirt, because it looks vaguely Indian, and the Beatles went through an Indian phase at some point. He originally picked out a wig that I called a "collapsed Afro," (it was period-appropriate enough, albeit in a more Jimi Hendrix way than a Beatles way), but as we were about to leave the house, I remembered he has a messy brown wig that I thought would look a little more like John Lennon's hair.

I'm glad I thought of that, because he got nothing but compliments about his costume. I did too, so I consider all the effort well worth it...even though I didn't win a prize. I don't think anyone got a prize, because by the time we left, the party was winding down, and no costume contest had been had. So I'll have to consider myself a winner in my own eyes.

(Ti)red and (Bo)red

The only reason I'm posting today's outfit is because it showcases a moderately interesting tailoring technique I'd like to share (oh, and also those new granny shoes I'm so inexplicably proud of).

The tailoring technique can be covered in a brief paragraph.

See, when I got the dress, it was too loose, and the saggy detailing around the waistband made it look extra-frumpy. If I wanted to actually resize that waistband to fit, I would have had to unstitch a lot of layers and recreate a lot of complicated twists and gathers, and I just didn't feel up to it. Instead, I took the lazy way out, making it tighter in the back, out of sight. I stretched a piece of elastic across the seam in the back, sewed it down, and voila! I had a fitted waist!

Now let's stop talking about this boring outfit. It is so deadly dull. I am so done with red!

Ever since the influx of red hit my wardrobe back in fall of 2016, I haven't really been able to shake it.

I rarely blog outfits featuring the color (maybe because I find it so boring), but lately it seems like a disproportionately large number of my clothes contain it.

I somehow have become the owner of four pairs of red tall boots, two pairs of red ankle boots, two pairs of red flats, and one pair of red pumps. I have three pairs of red pants and two red cardigans. Surprisingly, I've got only one red pullover, but four of my winter dresses are either red or red-accented, and three of my skirts. Enough al"red"y! I don't even like red that much!

I can't figure out why I have so much red stuff when I'm not really drawn to it, but I guess it's just a matter of availability. When you do all your shopping secondhand, and you find a garment you like, you don't get to choose what color it is. It comes in the color it comes in, and that's that. So when I needed some new long-sleeved dresses this fall, somehow the only ones that suited my requirements for length and features were all predominantly red. When I wanted some colorful pants to add variety to my collection, somehow the only options were red. Even when buying new, as I often do for shoes, I have found that the most plentiful non-neutral color out there is almost always red (for example, on ShoeDazzle, I found 54 styles of red boots, but only 5 each of green and purple).

Two days ago, when I was planning my outfit and realized that literally every single unworn thing I could choose from was red, all of a sudden, I couldn't take it any more (that was the moment I mentioned I "finally snapped.") I was sick to death of red. Once, in the past, I had to make a conscious effort to stop buying everything in green. Now I think I'm going to have to declare a moratorium on red.

Red, you're dead!

The Outfit That Picked Itself

Back when I worked in a grocery store, and my hardest style decision was which T-shirt to wear with my jeans, I developed a system to ensure all my T-shirts got equal wear. I kept them all in a stack in a drawer (imagine, being able to get all your T-shirts in a single stack!) and, whenever I got dressed, chose the one on the top. When I returned freshly washed T-shirts to the pile, I put them at the bottom, so I had a continuously cycling selection of T-shirts.

Although I've had to make some modifications to accommodate the much more prodigious size of my clothing collection these days, I still use this system throughout my closet. I keep all my sweaters in a stack (OK, seven stacks, arranged roughly by color, including 2 stacks of neutrals that hide in the back of the closet), and put my freshly cleaned sweaters at the top of their respective stacks (I switched to top-loading, because it's easier to remove one sweater from the bottom of a stack than to shove several sweaters under there on laundry day).

This gives me a pretty good idea of what I've worn recently and what I haven't, and this light blue sweater, standing out like a beacon at the bottom of my blue-green pile for months, had definitely not been worn recently. I've been on a One New Thing spree that has seen me mostly dressing in a series of neglected cardigans and vests (they'd piled up, as my use of layering pieces drops off heavily once the fickle weather of fall gives way to winter). But yesterday, I just snapped. I couldn't bear to build one more outfit around any of the New Things that still remained. I just had to reach into my collection of Old Things and wear something that was long overdue: the light blue sweater.

Since the sweater was next up in the rotation of blue and green sweaters, you could say that the sweater picked itself...and the remaining elements of the outfit sort of did the same. I wanted to bring some serious color into this outfit, and what happened to be at the bottom of my pile of colored skinny jeans (which I also try to wear in a rotation), but this dark eggplant-hued pair? Purple and blue are a good combo any day, and having them both come up for top consideration at the same time? That was a match made in heaven!

The next pieces in the ensemble were just as easy to select as the shirt and pants had been. I had an unworn pair of purple boots that would make a nice tonal pairing with the different-hued purple jeans, requiring almost no decision-making and neatly taking care of my One New Thing requirement. I also had an equally unworn purple necklace/earring set that was overdue for its debut, so it was a no-brainer for my accessories.

Ta-Da! In very short order, I had a fully analogous-color outfit ready for wearing, and it didn't require any thinking on my part!

Kind of a digression, but do take a closer look at the necklace/earring set. It's made of a stone I'd never heard of called solar quartz. It's dyed (the natural color is clear), but I'm very excited to add some mineral jewelry to my collection. I think natural crystals might become my next fashion passion!

Friday Fun?Day

I think the only time I can get away with wearing graphic printed leggings at work is on Friday Funday. So I did it!

The printed graphic leggings in question are the last of the many pairs that my boyfriend bought me, cheery enough in a kind of wintry way, with their white snowflakes and cute little trees.

But that's where the fun ends. The rest of the look takes on a decidedly gothic tone, with nothing but shades of shadow and blood.The leggings are otherwise black. The dress is black. The scarf I draped over my shoulders like a shroud is deep dark red, as are my boots. The earrings are positively vampirish in their antique splendor and crimson hue.

Undereye circles worthy of the undead!

So what is this outfit? Is it fun or is it depressing? Can it be both at once? Does it matter? Does anything really matter?

Just kidding! Lighten up, you downer! Just look at how I tied my scarf to my waist with the dress' built-in sash! With styling techniques like that to cheer us up, how could things be anything but fun!?

Cozy 2.0

In 2014 (I know, because I found an old Tweet about it), Body Central was selling a style of sweater they called their "Cozy." It was a pretty cool concept—a long-line open-front cardigan that could be worn 10 different ways. Naturally, I never even knew the Cozy existed until Body Central went out of business and, I'm guessing, sold off all its inventory to outlets like Swap.com, where I have purchased a number of new-with-tags Body Central products over the past couple years.

Well, perhaps I went a little overboard, but I bought 4 Body Central Cozies last year. What's weird about all this Cozy-collecting? I don't even like the way they look on me!

I've tried hard to hide it with artful posing, and by pinning it into an entirely different shape the two times I pictured a Cozy in the blog, but, to be perfectly honest, the Cozy does not really suit me – it just dangles off my huge shoulders like a huge cape. I feel like a Roman Centurion. There's just too much fabric to look graceful when draped over my disproportionate frame.

However, all was not lost! I made a few tweaks that made my first Cozy look slightly better on me. I have done this twice now—the red one was my first attempt, then I repeated the process on the yellow one.

I find that my oversized shoulders generally look better when defined by crisp, straight lines without a lot of attention-grabbing detail. The shoulder seams on the original garment were actually not shoulder seams at all, but angled up from a point in the middle of my chest. So my first trick was to return the shoulder seams back to the area of my shoulders!

In the picture, the left side is finished, while the right still shows the angling original seam.

I just lifted the fabric until the seam was parallel with my shoulder line, then pinned and stitched the front to the back. (Did this all inside-out, of course!)

Here's an inside view of the new seam.

Here's an outside view! I accidentally sewed a little offset from the original seam, but it turned out to be a happy accident, because I liked the look of the resulting double seam.

With the shoulders now duly defined, I turned my attention to the drape of the garment. Another trick I've noticed for getting clothes to look OK on me despite my shoulders, is to make sure that they give some hint of a waistline beneath. It's a clue to the observer that even though my shoulders take up a lot of space, the rest of me is not the same.

There was no side seam on the Cozy, so I decided to let it drape from the armpit, and picked a point that was directly below that to serve as my new bottom edge. Then I connected the armpit to that point with a curving seam to mimic a waistline. 

Here's a side-by-side of an unaltered Cozy (yellow) next to one I modified (red). The differences are subtle. Nearly invisible. Possibly completely invisible. But at least I tried.

My first newly refined Cozy looked marginally better than the old one, but still not good enough to warrant the purchase of more! But I'd already bought a second one (the aqua one) at the same time. Then I found a leopard one for only $1.80. I could see it still had the instruction tag on it, and I wanted to be able to learn the 10 ways that the Cozy is supposed to be worn (maybe I'd be able to make better use of the two I already had)! Also, I might have gotten sucked in by all the hype around leopard print.) So I bought the third one. Once armed with the knowledge of 9 additional ways to wear a Cozy, I saw the golden one for sale, and I felt confident I'd be able to style it in lots of exciting ways. So suddenly I found myself the proud owner of four Body Central Cozies.

After modifying the gold one in the same way as I'd done the red one, I finally branched out and wore the Cozy in one of its nine alternative stylings—jauntily wrapped over one shoulder like a huge scarf!

*Note that wrapping things around one's shoulders without defining one's arms or waist is probably the last thing one wants to do if one is sensitive about the size of one's shoulders, but I really had to try something new. Maybe I look huge, but I do like the asymmetrical result. The side seam that I added in becomes clearly visible when worn at this angle, which I think adds a little visual interest!

The sweater also brings out one of the accent colors on this new pair of bold floral boots, which put a literal spring in my step in these dark days of winter!

The modded knotted vest

You might have heard it before, but I have a special love for open-front vests. They're so useful—both for covering up bare shoulders in the summer, and breaking up large expanses of fabric in the winter. Over the past couple years, I've been making a concerted effort to expand my collection of vests to encompass a wider range of colors, so I can have a vest to suit any outfit!

One color vest I recently acquired is this, in faded magenta.

I appreciated the color, but not the fit. I prefer a more traditional up-and-down look to my vests, and didn't like the way the front panels curved to the back and bulged back there like a sack. So I fixed it!

I detached the front panels almost the entire length, and then reattached them so they hung straight down! 

Sounds simple, but it took me a number of tries to get the alignment right. At left is one of many try-ons in the mirror.

I didn't need to finish any of the raw edges, since the knit didn't look like it was planning to fray any time soon, but I felt the front panels would look more refined if I sewed the open parts shut again, so I turned them inside out, ran a seam along what would be the back and bottom edge of each, and then flipped it right-side-out and finished the remaining few stitches by hand.

I thought about shortening the front panels, but I like the long draped look in front, even if it makes the back look paltry by comparison.

This way, the panels can hang down, or they can be knotted at the front, which creates a cute effect!

I decided to make the vest the focus of today's outfit—a veritable study in magentas. I have the lilac blouse, the reddish vest over top, the burgundy boots and matching earrings...and then black pants to prevent color overload!

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!