2020 Hindsight

At the beginning of every year, I reflect back on the previous one and the sartorial styling that gave it flavor. Last year gave me more time than ever for reflection, but fewer actual resultant observations.

During the Great Quarantine of 2020, while the wheels of fashion still kept turning (as evidenced by the continued existence of fashion publications and the #OOTD hashtag), I hopped off the ride. I paid only passing attention to the articles telling me what to stock up on for next season; I certainly didn't get to observe any other fashionistas in real life!

So the pickings are slim, but I'll do what I can to report on a trend or two before returning to my cozy and carefree existence where leggings really are pants.

Sweatpants

Speaking of pants, let's start this post off with something you all knew was coming—sweatpants! The darling of athleisure that translated all too easily into stay-at-home everything, sweatpants were the topic of every Zoom joke that wasn't about putting wine in your coffee mug. For me (and presumably for many others), these cozy pants were not just a trend but a necessity, as a COVID winter loomed. I went all-in on sweatpants in the fall, buying as many bargain pairs as I could get my thrifty hands on (it ended up being 3), and even making a token effort at staying relevant by converting a straight-leg pair into the slouchy cuffed type.

Ultra-cropped tops

The other trend I noted in my sweatpants post was this specific type of very short, very baggy shirt. It seems impractical to me in a thermoregulatory sense, but it seemed almost mandatory to pair little cropped sweatshirts with your big baggy sweatpants, as long as you were young and/or in possession of abs of steel. I am neither (and rather committed to keeping my midriff warm!) so I am happily letting this trend pass me by.

Cardigans

I suppose in a year where everyone seeks out the comfy and cozy, a topper that reminds you of your grandmother makes perfect sense! To be honest, though, the short, large-button cardigan is the first trend I noticed this year, way before coronavirus was even a gleam in the CDC's eye. It has popped up pretty consistently in my halfhearted fashion scrolling, and cardigans are one of the specific items that my local consignment shop was requesting this winter. If I were ever to seek a sign to let me know what's trendy, it would be whatever the professional buyers are trying to obtain. Cardigans it is!

Boots with lug soles (and knee high shafts)

I always put a shoe trend on my list, but to be honest, I've hardly paid attention to shoes at all this year, since the only ones I can wear are soft flat ones for walking quietly on my hardwood floors and biking to the grocery store. I've totally let practicality supersede trendiness in my recent shoe shopping. But there's one thing I couldn't help but notice every time I read a missive from my Internet fashion advisors. It's the lug-sole boot. Although my sample pictures are exclusively of the above-the-ankle variety, I've been told that knee-high boots are coming back. After years of learning to loathe thigh-high boots (they always slide down!) and reluctant adoption of ankle boots, I'm excited for the return of knee-highs—my first boot love. Of course, time will tell if it really becomes a trend, but here's hoping anyway!

 

Predictions

Speaking of hoping, it's time to talk predictions. My forecasting game was way off last year – I haven't seen even a hint of lace gloves! Seeing as I was such a poor guesser for 2020, I hesitate to imagine what 2021 will bring, but yes, I'm going to make the attempt anyway.

Assuming we beat the coronavirus and can start strutting our stuff before the year's too far gone, I'm banking on a flood of maximalism. After a year of being confined to our homes, choosing comfort over fashion, and few opportunities for dressing to impress even if we were so inclined, I think we're all going to want to cut loose! Bring on the sequins! The sparkle! Every impractical but oh-so-interesting statement garment we've stuffed into the backs of our closets and are now going to wear all at once! If this vision comes true, I can't wait to see what it looks like!

Ultimate Gray and Illuminating

Since I started my tradition of wearing the Pantone Color of the Year on New Year's Day (or the day after!), this will be the first year that there have been two colors for the price of one! Every once in a while, Pantone chooses a two-tone combination to be its "color" of the year. Is it cheating? Perhaps, but it's not my place to critique their color selections—it's my place to wear them.

I was initially unenthused by this year's choice of "Ultimate Gray and Illuminating"—after all, I unwittingly wore Ultimate Gray for my Pantone outfit in 2018, and would never find it an interesting color even if it hadn't been done before. The other half – "Illuminating" – variously described as a "bright," "vibrant," "cheerful," "warming" yellow, sounded a lot more fun, except for the fact that I don't really have anything yellow in my wardrobe.

Well, anything, really, except that one sweater I've been wearing and rewearing since at least 2016. The thought of my best option being a tired-out old shirt with a boring pair of gray slacks sent me into a funk...until I realized this was the perfect excuse to shop for something new! I am forever trying to get more warm colors into my collection. Though lately my sights have been set on goldenrod, 2021 seemed as good a time as any to shift to an even more sunshiney shade!

As soon as I saw this yellow zippered hoodie on Swap.com, instantly my spirits soared and my imagination went into overdrive, calculating all the fashiony fun that could be had with such a lively layering piece (you know I'm in a good mood when I start piling on the alliteration and inventing new words!).

Most importantly, it was a velour hoodie! I missed the velour tracksuit trend the first time around. Though I had a coworker at the grocery store who wore her Juicy Couture almost every day (and was, although she never knew it, the one who gave me the courage to trade in my jeans for yoga pants and start donning knitwear for work), I myself never got to  jump on the tracksuit bandwagon.

But better late than never, as the Unfashionista always says (since last month!), and I've been hearing from reliable sources that velour is cool again! So yes, I had to buy the hoodie. At 9 dollars, it was more than I pay for a shirt, but within my price range for a jacket (maximum 10), so I felt I'd be excused for overspending, especially for such a worthy occasion.

I paired the hoodie with a grey camisole and some Ultimate Gray workout leggings that I recently retired from actually working out. Poorly designed for athletics, they are neither very flexible nor very breathable. About the only thing they're good for is anchoring an athleisure outfit while just happening to be the Pantone Color of the Year.

The icing on the bottom was a brand new pair of light grey sneakers with metallic racing stripes, which were neither Ultimate Gray nor Illuminating, but complemented the colors in a way that I liked.

In this very loungey ensemble, I am at perhaps my finest representation of Quarantine Chic. Now that I've hit the pinnacle, there's nowhere to go but down. You hear that, COVID? Time to get lost. 2021 (and its promise of real pants) awaits!

Tie Dye Time!

If the Unfashionista were to have a personal motto (other than "Fun with Colors"), it would have to be "Never Say Never."

Though I claimed last year that one dip in the tie dye bath would be enough for me, I was wrong. Tie dye continued to flourish in the world of fashion and even home furnishings, and it was said to have experienced a huge wave of popularity during the spring and summer. I didn't observe this personally because I pretty much took a break from fashion in favor of social distancing, but that's what they say. I did feel personally that it was one of the most trendy things I own, so my single tie-dye shirt became pretty much my go-to tee over the past year, whenever I wanted to seem a little bit more with the times. (Self-congratulation alert: I even got a compliment on its bright and happy colors during a hike despite our noticeably less friendly times!)

But this post isn't about my tie-dye tee, it's about my tie-dye blouse!

Once I had gotten over my initial aversion to the idea of tie dye, I continued to see examples of "tasteful tie dye" in my news feeds and shopping haunts, and decided I wouldn't mind having more of a good thing. Late this summer, I bought two tie-dye tops at Swap.com for a total of 5 dollars, one of them being this one!

 

This one took a little work to get into a wearable condition. It was very short and very wide and very unflattering on my frame. 

 

I reduced the size of the sleeve openings and took in the sides, then added waist ties to give it a more body-conforming shape.

It's still shorter than I prefer a loose shirt to be—I thought about extending the length with the offcuts from the sides and sleeves, but decided that wouldn't work. So it's finished!

I had the opportunity to wear it out into the big wide world today because I had a dentist appointment. If you ever want to feel better about having two teeth drilled, just wear a new fashionable top for the procedure!

"Fashionable" is relative, of course—the same sources who informed me of the tie-dye wave this summer also tell me it's on the wane. But if the Unfashionista were to have a third personal motto, it would have to be "Better late than never!"

Sweatpants: a DIY

Once it became clear, in late summer, that I was going to be confined mostly to home for the foreseeable future, I invested heavily in comfy pants. Tunics and leggings had their moment last spring, but I wanted, once in a while, to be able to wear a shirt of a normal length while lounging around the house. So a shopping spree ensued. I ended up with 5 secondhand pairs of sweat/lounge pants, which, being secondhand, were mostly of a somewhat dated straight-leg cut. Something had to be done.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I converted my first pair of straight-leg sweatpants into what was, at that time, a trendy pair of joggers.

These days, it only takes a quick perusal of Tik Tok or Instagram to show that joggers are no longer trendy. If you're going to be wearing sweats, they had better be the baggy kind with elastic cuffs—the very kind I loathed as a youngster and hoped never to wear again.

Alas, even an Unfashionista cannot resist the siren song of cultural relevance, so I had to bite the bullet and commit to the trendiest ugly silhouette of 2020.

And thus, I began the conversion of my too-short straight-leg pink pair of sweats into the bottom-cuff kind.

I checked to see whether I'd like the alteration by safety-pinning one leg in an approximation of the altered effect. It was a go!

 

Then I opened up a hole in the side seam at the bottom hem, threaded in a strip of elastic about the circumference of the bottom of my calf, and sewed it all back up! 

 

Instant modernity!

A second perusal of Instagram or Tik Tok quickly reveals that the preferred pairings with this type of sweatpants are either a matching sweatshirt or an ultra-cropped top of almost any sort. I made a valiant effort to follow the trend, wearing my new sweats for the first time with a cute crop top that I've had for almost 2 years and never worn.

The reason for the delay, of course, is that whenever it's cold enough to wear long sleeves, it's too cold to be showing one's midriff! I'll sacrifice my taste in the name of fashion, but never my body heat! I'd originally thought I might be able to wear the top to some event where crowds of humans would render the air warm enough that I'd be able to get away with uncovering my most thermally critical body part. But as crowds are out of the question for at least the remainder of this winter, I finally decided to give up on the impractical top.

After the hurried photo shoot (the brrr explains the blur!), I relegated it to the to-sell pile and traded it in for a less fashionable but more comfortable long-sleeved tee that completely covered me in blessed warmth.

Flashback Friday

 

Every day is casual day when you're working from home, but I'm still trying to give my workday outfits a more professional spin...from the shoulders up! That means collared shirts and nice sweaters when the weather's cold. But I still reserve my more fun outfits for Fridays, and that means this jacket! I don't think I'd wear this jacket to a normal physical office any day—mainly because it's got a casual vibe and it's so festive that I'd want to reserve it for a more special occasion. In fact, I'm almost sure I did wear it for at least three special occasions, but I never got a photo. In fact, I think of it as my bad luck karaoke shirt because two of the occasions involved karaoke that never happened. So by this time, it has diminished in novelty enough that wearing it for work seemed more reasonable...especially when "work" means "home," and the only thing people would see of it was the top 3 inches or so.

I was all set to wear it with a pair of pink sweatpants when I realized the pants would be much improved with a little alteration (stay tuned for a future post on this change and on all things sweatpants-related!). I found a decent pair of backup pants in my closet, and planned to sew the sweatpants during a webinar in the morning, so I'd have the outfit ready to wear through most of the afternoon.

Then I looked at myself in the mirror. In my vintage cargo pants and midriff-baring jacket, I was the spitting image of a turn-of-the-millennium fashionista! It just so happens that 90's bang tendrils have made a resurgence, and it just so happens that my growing-out fringe is the perfect length to pull them off! So I decided to go full-on retro.

A throwback look is probably not as cool if you're old enough to have actually rocked those styles the first time around...and bang tendrils not as cool when you have such wispy hair as mine, but I still had fun with it.

A ponytail and a postponey tale

Sometime last spring, I hatched the idea for this outfit—a (newly re-hemmed!) colorful maxi skirt, a rust-orange top, and finally and most importantly, the sash made from the bottom of the skirt, to be tied around my ponytail!

 

This outfit was so cute that I couldn't bear to wear it to work from home; I had to save it for when it could be seen in person! Thus, it stayed in reserve all spring, got consigned to storage all summer, and finally resurfaced for consideration during a cold snap in September. Its colors make it a much better fall outfit anyway, but there's one problem: I'm still working from home and no one was going to see it in person!

However, I'd already delayed this outfit some 7 months, and as with all clothes I grow impatient of waiting for the right occasion to wear, I finally decided to just go for it! An outfit well done is its own reward, right?

Although it didn't factor into my decision to wear this ensemble yesterday, some contractors were visiting the house to make some adjustments to my solar array, so at least they got to admire my artwork! And a virtual meeting popped up at the last minute, so my beribboned ponytail was on hi-def display for a grand audience of four! Rarely can I say that I am grateful for a last-minute meeting, but I can say that about this one...maybe. Maybe not.

Anyway, for an outfit that I initially thought would go completely unseen, it actually got a sizeable amount of exposure. Whether or not anyone noticed it is another question entirely. But that's why I'm posting it in my blog! Visit counts, here I come!

Rompers and Roses

 

Social distancing has certainly put a damper on dressing up. A birthday grocery run is about the biggest occasion I've had to show my face in public since the pandemic began.

That is, until last Friday, when I took the opportunity to meet a friend for an afternoon of wining and dining in the great outdoor venues of downtown Silver Spring. And that meant I had to have an outfit that would compensate – in one blowout of a day – for all the months I've been putzing around in a frumpy parade of house clothes.

Now I am admittedly a pretty aspirational shopper, tending to buy clothes first and look for an occasion to wear them later, but I've shown remarkable restraint during the pandemic and haven't purchased a single impractical item...which meant that when my day to shine finally arrived, I had nothing new to wear!

Nothing new except shoes, which I always have in steady supply. I stockpiled a fair amount of dressy sandals last fall, never imagining that my feet wouldn't see anything fancier all summer than a pair of Tevas. Although I had a much more colorful selection to choose from, I had to go with the fairly uninteresting pair of white low-heeled sandals.

Simple shoes were a necessity because my choice of clothing was gaudy as can be—a romper covered in multicolor roses! I'd tricked this particular garment out with removable straps two years ago, wore it once, and then let it rest for a season. It was now ripe for one last hurrah before being sold.

Of course, in this day and age, it's no hurrah until there's a coordinating face mask to go with it, so I very quickly customized a plain cream mask with a glued-on embroidery flower—actually the same flower that once graced my now-retired velvet slip dress.

After my afternoon of romping, I removed the flower from the mask. Maybe in another 2 months, a new social occasion will present itself, and both the mask and the appliqué will be ready for decoration!