Fashionably late for Valentine's Day

Not being much of a fashion blogger any more, when I do wear an outfit so nice that someone else volunteers to take a picture of it—well, I'm not sure quite what to do!

And that's why this post about my Valentine's Day Dress of 2023 is only making it out into the world four days after Valentine's Day. But it made it! And that's what counts!

I've had this dress since well before Valentine's Day of last year. I optimistically bought it in early fall, thinking I could wear it on a second or third date (too revealing for a first date!) with someone special. Or maybe even on Valentine's Day! Well, if you don't recall, Valentine's Day last year was a total disaster, definitely unworthy of a sexy dress, but I never lost hope! 

A year later, I finally got to wear it on a so-many-I've-lost-counth date with someone special! That's my boyfriend (official as of sometime last spring)! He is so special, that he appreciated my efforts enough to – without even being asked (without my even considering asking because I'd basically given up on self-promotional photography in any form) – offer to take pictures of my outfit!

How could I refuse? And once said pictures were in my possession, how could I refuse to share them in the one place where self-promotional photos go? No, not Instagram—that's for my dog. I shared them in my old, neglected but still beloved, fashion blog!

And now on to the outfit. Beyond its backstory, the dress is relatively simple for the Unfashionista. When I got it last year, rib-knit dresses and chest cutouts were having a moment. Admittedly, at that point they were on the downswing of their moment, and time is not kind to any trend, but I feel the silhouette of this dress is basically timeless. The dark maroon color is a subtler take on the vibrant reds and pinks I favor on V-Day.

So to punch things up, I got out the fuzzy heeled booties I made in 2020 and probably haven't worn since then. And probably won't wear again—so look out, eBay! They're coming your way!

And that was that! An entire outfit in two pieces. With the vibrant red hair that has been my signature color for almost a year now, I was a picture in romantic monochrome. I also wore tiny heart-shaped earrings, but who would have noticed that? 

National Secondhand Wardrobe Day

Yesterday was a special day for The Unfashionista—National Secondhand Wardrobe Day!

Pretty much all my wardrobe is secondhand, barring the occasional piece that I received or bought myself as a gift (more on that later?), but today I challenged myself to wear the most secondhand of the secondhand—featuring a reincarnated top and a resuscitated skirt.

The top, originally sourced from Swap.com, you may recognize from previous posts. I converted it from a long-sleeved dress to an open-shoulder dress (back when that was still somewhat trendy) in 2017, and then the next summer, hacked off the sleeves and turned them into a belt. The garment achieved its fourth and final form in 2020, when I dramatically raised the bottom hem and made it into a blouse with a waist tie. Four lives for one piece of clothing? That might be a new personal record!

And now, because I've worn the dickens out of this shirt and am tired of it, I think I'm going to donate it, making it assuredly not just a secondhand, but a thirdhand wardrobe piece.

Meanwhile, the skirt that I chose for this occasion had held a long and rich life of its own, a portion of which was spent waiting unworn in my closet. I no longer remember how or when I got this skirt, but I realized it was completely unwearable when I got it out of storage this summer to find that the smocked waistband had lost all its elasticity and wouldn't stay up. Never one to let a good skirt be kept down, I flipped it inside out and stitched an elastic waistband (undoubtedly salvaged from some elder pair of pants or skirt) to the inside. It's a quick and dirty fix, but no one looks inside the waistband of your skirt!

The final piece to this masterpiece is the shoes, which I also purchased on Swap.com. Do you know how hard it is to find green shoes? Hard! But after months of searching, I finally managed to drop these green ballet flats in my cart for only $12.50. They are an almost-perfect color match for the green skirt, and they're even real suede leather. A true steal and source of secondhand celebration!

Very Peri

You might have noticed I've been gone for a while. I pumped the brakes on fashion blogging because, honestly, who's reading? However, I just can't give up my tradition of the New Year's Day Pantone-Color-of-the-Year-themed outfit!

The Color of the Year for 2022 is a newly invented color just for the occasion: Very Peri — or, as the less lyrical among us like to say, just plain periwinkle.

Pantone calls it a "blue hue," but it veers dangerously close to lavender. The only thing in my wardrobe that walks that fine line between purple and blue is a pair of sweatpants—convenient, since my only plan for New Year's Day was to not leave the house. Periwinkle sweatpants were just the ticket for a day of lounging, loafing, and laundry.

I really had no idea what I'd wear with these pants, but at the last moment, I peeked into my workout clothing drawer and found a pastel purple tank top that coordinated beautifully with the sweats.

The sporty tank top was sufficiently warm for doing chores, but I got chilly when I set about the proscribed loafing, so I topped off the outfit with a white zippered hoodie. And then I bottomed it with white sneakers.

A simple ensemble, hardly worth blogging about, but tradition is tradition!

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!

It's still St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day this year happened to coincide with Spring Break at the university where I work, so I was looking forward to having the whole day off and celebrating in American-Irish style—wearing lots of green, getting a group together, and visiting every pub in town.

Then the coronavirus arrived on our shores. Before long, every pub in town was closed, and getting a group together sounded like a very unwise idea. I could still wear lots of green, but what would be the point if no one would see me but my dog? He's color-blind!

I was all set to garb myself in my typical "house clothes," which are just a collection of miscellaneous loungewear that's a smidge less shabby than my pajamas, but I was feeling sad about it. For the second year in a row, I wasn't going to be able to get decked out and celebrate St. Paddy's (last year, I think I was driving all day).

Then it occurred to me: what is a fashion blog good for, if not sharing your style with the people who can't see it in person? Even if I couldn't wear my holiday outfit in public, I could at least show some holiday spirit online! It's still St. Patrick's Day, even if I'm a party of one!

 

So I gathered up my new (thrifted) shamrock shirt, topped it with a green cardigan (If you look closely, you can see that the sweater and the tee both feature a little subtle heart motif as well!), and finished off the look with some stylin' yoga pants! 

 

 

I just happen to have a Lucky Irish bed frame in my possession right now (um, if you want to buy it, it's currently on Craigslist!), so naturally I used it as the backdrop for my pictures, and added a leprechaun-scale mug of green faux beer (water and soap bubbles, guys; it takes more than 6 days of social distancing to get me desperate enough to actually drink beer!). Nothing like being confined at home to inspire an elaborate photoshoot!

If I'd been going out, I'd have probably worn jeans and added earrings, but if you're gonna stay home all day, you might as well be comfy! No shoes required in Valerie's Pretend Pub!

Sláinte!

National Dress (in Blue) Day

Not too long ago, I subscribed to the National Day Calendar. My motivation? It's just plain fun to have something random to celebrate at any given time...but I also figured it would help give me occasional inspiration on what to wear. Boy, did it not disappoint on March 6, when it informed me that it was not only National Dress Day (every March 6), but also National Dress in Blue Day (first Friday of March). Two clothing-related observances for the price of one! Naturally, my outfit for this Friday, March 6, simply had to involve a blue dress!

The pickings were slim. I had only two blue dresses to choose from: this one and the one with the fox and moon. The cutesy imagery on the latter, I was sure, would detract from the overall concept of "blue dress," so I went with the former.

The dress alone didn't give me much to blog about, with its simple structure and striped design, so I turned to layering for some added interest. This black tuxedo vest was the missing piece. Long a staple in my collection, it rarely makes an appearance in my outfit, but when it does, it always looks snazzy. I loved what it did for this look, somehow giving a plain T-shirt-dress a touch of style.

National Dress Day exists purely for the fun of fashion (it was invented by a fashion designer), but National Dress in Blue Day is supposed to raise awareness for colon cancer, so I would be remiss if I didn't remind you to eat your fiber, and get your screenings if you're over 50!

Black / Hearts

Over the years, my Valentine's Day outfits have been evolving from simplistic single pieces in the holiday's signature colors to entire heart-themed getups.

The other thing they've been doing is getting more subdued in color. Last year, it was navy blue (and a super-subtle pink); this year at work, it was moody dark red almost entirely subsumed by black. But for Valentine's Date Night this year (which occurred 2 days after Valentine's Day, but still counts!), I took it to a new extreme by not wearing a single piece in red or pink!

That's right; for the first time ever, my Valentine's outfit consisted almost entirely of neutral colors!

The centerpiece of the look was this black skirt with white hearts, which I ordered on Swap.com for a cool $2.50 the last week of January, and which arrived with only a week to plan an outfit around. While I could have added a lot more color if I were so inclined, I was really digging the stark contrasts in all the black and white pieces I tried on (and I tried on a lot!). In the end, I went with black stockings, my newish white layered boots, and a white long-sleeve crop top.

I did manage to work in a tiny flash of color: blue heart earrings, which have actually been sitting around unworn since I wore their pink twins last year! It's about time they got some love!

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!

New Things and Old Trends

There's this game I play when I'm struggling for sartorial inspiration. It's called One New Thing, and, unsurprisingly, its objective is to wear one new (never-worn-by-me) thing every day. Complicated, right? I invented this game in 2018, as a way to quickly burn through a glut of unworn clothes in my closet, but it's evolved into a sort of Fashion Challenge that I use to give me creative direction when I'm feeling unmotivated. I've been playing the latest game since early January. Unlike most Fashion Challenges, I don't usually document my progress in One New Thing (as it can go on indefinitely, given my almost limitless supply of new clothes), except when the New Thing in question inspires a particularly interesting outfit...like this one!

The Thing that started it all off is this skirt. If I had to guess at its actual age, I'd say it was made sometime around when I finished college (2005), as I had a skirt with a similar cut that I wore for graduation. But its design is definitely intended to evoke a bygone era—the brown-and-gold color scheme and pattern of overlapping ovals just jump up and scream 1960's!

Just wearing this skirt wasn't enough to really make me feel inspired (it's that time of winter!), so I had to up the ante and devise a complete outfit around a 60's theme.

First stop was footwear. My brown pumps with the square toes and block heels wouldn't have looked out of place in the decade; and while bare legs or colorful tights seemed much more popular options in the 60's, I was really feeling the knee socks. It's OK to not be totally historically accurate, I had to keep reminding myself; this outfit was supposed to be evocative, not costumey!

In the interest of being less costumey, I passed on the huge mod dangle earrings and went with another New Thing for my jewelry: a brown necklace that has been sitting in my unworn jewelry basket so long it practically qualifies as an old thing. My plain ivory sweater completed the clothing portion of the look, but I still had to do something with my hair.

It's fortunate that my hair has grown long enough that I can style it a variety of ways, and today, I tried to style it in a way that reflected the 60's. Alas, my limp locks will never achieve bouffant volume, but at least I could accomplish some romantic parted bangs and a half-updo. To be fair, this is how I've been wearing my hair most days lately, but today, I can claim to be channeling Brigitte Bardot.

Partying like it's 1999

 

A funny thing happened in the last month of 2019: I became obsessed with the fashion of the 90's.

It all started with a  "trance classics" dance party that I attended shortly before Christmas. Now, the heyday of trance music occurred in the late 90's and early 2000's, so I felt like the perfect outfit for an all-old-school trance party would be something from around that era.

I looked to online stills from Buffy the Vampire Slayer as my inspiration, and eventually came up with a cute combo of cami + straight skirt + knee-high boots + butterfly necklace. It combined several distinctive looks of the turn of the millennium, in a conservative sort of way—the trance classics party was only on the top floor of a club that was otherwise just doing business as usual, so I didn't feel like going for the obnoxiously retro raver look. Sadly, I didn't even get a chance to take off my coat before we left, and definitely didn't get a picture.

Un-sadly, I had another chance to pull off a 90's ensemble just a couple weeks later, when a friend invited me to a 90's dance party! Also very fortunately, 2 days before the party, a different friend unloaded a huge collection of secondhand clothes on me, including a quintessentially 90's plaid skirt.

It made the perfect centerpiece to my Clueless-inspired outfit. I wore a cropped cardigan on top and over-the-knee socks on the bottom. You can't do 90's without a choker, so I wore my pink one with the dangling pearl, and pearl earrings. I thought it a very prim and proper, Cher Horowitz-approved jewelry selection.

I even put two barrettes in the side of my hair and tried to curl it under in the best approximation of "The Rachel" I can wheedle out of my very straight, blunt-cut locks.

This time, I finally made the effort to get a photo before even leaving the house!

Success! — but in planning for the parties, I came up with another retro outfit, evoking the early aughties, that I simply can't wait to wear. Now that it's 2020, it's officially time to start being sentimental about the first decade of the millennium. 2000's parties, here I come!

Classic Blue

In keeping with recent tradition, I once again wore an outfit highlighting Pantone's Color of the Year for the first day of the new year (and decade—what an occasion!).

This year's color is a boring one if I do say so myself: "Classic Blue." If ever a color that's not beige, brown, black, or white could be considered a neutral, Classic Blue would be it—the color of denim, corporate logos, Powerpoint backgrounds, and everything else that's dependable and unexciting.

For a first outfit of the year, I guess unexciting is acceptable—especially considering that my New Year's Eve was a wild night spent in a smashing all-silver getup that filled my quotient for thrilling clothes for many days to come. The night, which didn't end for me until after 4 AM, was, in fact, so thrilling that I forgot to take a picture of my outfit, so you'll never see the metallic masterpiece that I assembled.

Instead, content yourself with this perfectly pedestrian Pantone creation. Every single garment I'm wearing is some shade of blue, although I think the most "classic" of the hues is probably the center of the embroidered flowers on my jeans, which can be seen a lot better in this photo from 2 years ago, when they were also the centerpiece of an all-blue outfit.

I guess one good thing about Classic Blue, its complete lack of novelty notwithstanding, is that you can assemble an entire outfit in shades of it, and no one will even notice that's what you're doing!

In Living Coral

The only color I ever saw fit to write a whole blog post about was salmon—the pastel hue that lies somewhere in the no-man's (but not, apparently, no-fish's!) land between pink and orange. In that post, I also mentioned that its darker, more intense sister is commonly known as coral. I complained, in fact, that my personal idea of what the color coral should look like seemed to differ greatly from the more popular usage, which reserved coral mostly for deep, orange-tinged reds. Well, the debate is finally over, because in 2019, Pantone's color of the year is "Living Coral."

Pantone describes this color as a "coral hue with a golden undertone," which is a not-so-helpful circular definition. But if we go beyond words to analyze the color swatch and the background hues on Pantone's color page, I can say pretty confidently that coral – at least this shade of it – is a slightly reddish orange that leans ever so slightly toward the pastel end of the tonal range. Eat that, all you product peddlers who've been using the term without my approval to describe a deep vermilion!

As in 2018, this year I wanted my very first outfit to feature Pantone's Color of the Year; and, as in 2018, I waited until the second day of the year to actually do it. The only really coral thing in my closet – a pair of crisply creased crêpe slacks (tongue twister not intended!) – was much better suited to the office than a New Year's Day breakfast.

Whatever could not be coral in today's look had to be neutral, so I donned a flesh-toned sweater and matching nude shoes. For jewelry, I chose the only other truly coral item in my collection: my 3-D filigree necklace. I like to think the swirling, branching design somewhat resembles the structure of a live coral colony.

The sweater is slightly see-through, and I'm glad it is, because it forced me to add a camisole underneath. That opened an opportunity to diversify my color choices! Since the pants and necklace were more on the pink side of things, the soft orange hue of the cami helped realign my color palette closer to its Living Coral theme. And of course, a touch of sequin is never unwelcome!

Once again, my hair quite coincidentally participated in the theme—while yesterday I claimed that it had faded to pink, in full-spectrum lighting, it clearly still sports an orange tint. All this time I've been calling my hair "orangey-pink," and I could have just called it "coral!"

I was about to finish off the look with some unobtrusive gold stud earrings when I noticed these goldfish on the rack nearby. My mental gears started clanking: my color scheme was orange; so were these fish. Fish live in the ocean; so does coral! I had unwittingly stumbled on the cleverest accessory to complete my ensemble, representing the theme not only in color but also motif! What luck!

I said it yesterday, and I'll say it again—2019 is going to be a great year!

Flyday

 

Friday has thus far been the hardest day of the week to get a clever name for. While all the other days boasted multiple possibilities, there was only one variation on "Fri" that made even a slight amount of sense for my clothing collection: "Fly."

Back in July, when I came up with "Flyday", I had no shortage of aerial creatures in my wardrobe, with huge flocks of bird dresses and bee sandals, so I had infinite possibilities for a flight-themed outfit!

Now that it's winter (in weather, if not in scientific fact), my clothing collection sings a much sadder tune, with not a single winged animal in sight. Sure, there are other things that fly – Superman, kites, airplanes, UFO's, boomerangs, dandelion fluff, clouds, the Fickle Finger of Fate...but I don't have any of those on my clothing either! In order to make today's outfit, I had to dig around in my "Transitional" clothing storage tote until I found something with wings. The first suitable garment I uncovered was my pink butterfly poncho. Not a bad choice, considering I had wanted to blog about it last season but never got the chance.

This poncho was the second of two that I had gotten at the same time and needed to improve upon with a little bit of stitchery. Just like the first one, I cut the neck hole larger and finished it with some lace hem tape. Unlike that one, I decided to make the neck opening perfectly circular instead of oval, which accidentally made it much too big! To fix it, I pinched together two points on its perimeter and sewed them together. The resulting loop of excess fabric can be tucked to the inside, or folded over on the outside and secured with a pin—a convenient way to add another butterfly to an outfit! Sadly, my antique butterfly brooch lost a wing around 11 this morning, turning what had been the focal point of my top into a shabby embarrassment.

I thought this was a misfortune, but it actually enabled me to meet the theme in a more metaphorical way, as it forced me to make some adjustments to my look "on the fly." Since I could no longer close my poncho with a cute butterfly pin, I used a safety pin hidden on the back side. This left more room for butterfly jewelry, so I traded my tiny stud earrings for some huge silver butterfly danglers (I'd brought them to work with me just in case). I always feel happier when wearing statement earrings, so the day was not a total loss.

The theme was "Flyday," not "Butterflyday," so I kind of wanted to include other things that fly instead of just sticking to Lepidoptera. But I played around with some bird jewelry and found that the total effect of so many barely related animals looked more like a "Flying Circus" than any cohesive unit. Even adding too many butterflies launched me into tacky territory, so I limited myself to the aforementioned earrings and just one bracelet. I did make sure to wear pants with a fly, so I guess that counts for something!

A final challenge: while trying on the poncho last night, I quickly realized that it was no match for the dry air of December. It grew more and more staticky with each passing minute. Since I had a whole night before I needed to wear it and was confident it would dry quickly, I soaked it in a bowl of water mixed with hair conditioner, then laid it out to dry on the floor. That did seem to help somewhat with the static, but I still had to spray it liberally with water throughout the day, to keep it from clinging to my clothes. I feel safe to say that, unless you're in a Fashion Challenge, you should save the chiffon for summer!

Fursday

Ah, the theme that made me push this whole Fashion Challenge back by half a year—it's Fursday!

Obviously, you can't have a Fursday without fur, and you'd be crazy to wear fur in the summer. So, after coming up with the theme no later than July, I bided my time, ruminating for months about exactly what furry pieces I would wear when that distant Thursday finally rolled around.

As luck would have it, the furry piece of my dreams practically fell into my lap on my most recent Swap.com [referral link] run. I finally found one of those faux-fur vests that I'd been coveting for so long that I'd basically given up on the idea. This one was not quite as shaggy as the original inspiration, but it was only $3.60, and since I knew I'd be able to use it for this upcoming themed outfit, it seemed a sensible enough investment.

As even more luck would have it, the faux fur on the vest happened to very nicely complement a pair of fur-lined boots I have in my collection. I never loved these boots as much as I thought I would when I bought them, and since I acquired quite a few pairs of brown boots over the past year, I was ready to kick these kicks to the curb. But not before they get to play their role as the second titular piece in my Fursday outfit!

The clothes I wore to complete my fur boots and vest were simple and unobtrusive. I wanted to go with colors that can naturally be found on animals' coats. Black was prohibited, as I've worn black pants almost every day this week, but dark brown worked, and the ivory sweater provided a nice pale contrast to the darker shades of the rest of my clothing.

The final touch in today's look has no fur itself, but does picture a furry animal. When I was looking around for mammal-themed jewelry, I was pretty astonished at how little I actually have. My collection is chock-full of birds, sea creatures of all types, and even the occasional arthropod...but the representation of fuzzy land mammals is almost nonexistent...and almost exclusively limited to cats. Last night I made a note to self, to scour eBay for new and exciting animal accessories, but in the meantime, I did find one unworn cloisonné pendant in the patchwork form of (of course!) a cat.

Weddingsday

It's finally here, the concept that started it all! It was earlier this summer (May 22, to be exact,) when it occurred to me that "Weddin'sday," would be a splendid punny title for a blog post. Before long, I had constructed the bones of an outfit to go with the theme, and before much longer, I had realized that a whole week of day-name homophones would make for a fun Fashion Challenge! One of the homophones I had devised would work much better with winter clothes (telling you why would spoil the surprise, since it's coming up tomorrow!), so I actually postponed the challenge for several months, refining my ideas until I'd come up with the multi-day masterpiece you're in the middle of witnessing!

But it all began with a simple lace dress. I've been searching for a pure white dress for ages (just in case I ever get invited to an all-white party, which is my dream), but they're apparently hard to come by—and more so when you insist on your dress being an appropriate length for work (because if I never get invited to an all-white party, which I probably won't, I still want to be able to wear the dress somewhere!). When I saw this dress on eBay, I thought I'd found the one. Unfortunately, a trick of photography made me think it was much longer than it actually was—when it arrived, I could see I was never going to be able to wear this dress in the office unless I put pants under it.

So put pants under it I did! With a white lace dress on top and black pants on the bottom, I looked like I was trying to be both a bride and a groom at the same time. That was a rather bizarre notion, and I ran with it!

I wore a black blazer (er, "suit jacket") and ornamented my lapel with a floral brooch (we'll call that a "boutonnière"). I wore off-white lace bridal shoes, which were just a tad darker than the dress. I topped off my hair with a white headband (about as close as I can get to a veil at work without raising eyebrows) and my ears with blue chandeliearrings. Nothing particularly nuptial about those, but I just really didn't want to repeat my austere ears of yesterday! In any case, they can count as my "something blue."

 

 

This Fashion Challenge would not exist if it weren't for Weddingsday, but I don't feel this outfit is my best showing. I think the real winners of this week are going to be tomorrow and Friday, so let's just say I'm glad the wedding is over and it's time for the honeymoon to begin!

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?

Garden of Eden

Usually I don't get this far into August with many still-unworn clothes left in my closet, but the thrifting has been good this year. By the time I realized the end of summer was upon us, I also realized that I still had many days' worth of summer clothes that I'd never even taken for a spin! So the past week, I've been trying to wear at least one new garment or accessory every day.

Today, to add more challenge to the mix, I decided I simply must wear a dress. I had worn pants on Tuesday, and skirts on Monday and Wednesday, so I felt it was high time to work a one-piece into the week. But my work-appropriate dress collection has been rather small this summer, and the only dress I was in the mood for was this already well worn leafy green one. That meant that my One New Thing for this outfit was going to have to be the shoes.

Fortunately, I had a perfectly coordinating pair of green sandals that would fit the bill. I paid a premium (16$) for these shoes a few weeks ago, because I was feeling the need for a pair of green sandals with a thicker heel, and the heel on these is not only thick, but so enormously deep that it just barely avoids being classed as a wedge. I found it fascinating! So into my cart they went, despite my trepidations about the reptile-skin texture. I'm not a fan of snakeskin, even the fake kind, but just this once, I was willing to overlook it because I loved everything else about the shoes.

But there was one thing I wasn't loving about the outfit I planned with them: it was just too one-note. Green dress, green shoes...even when I go monochrome, I try to incorporate multiple layers and shades of my chosen color, and this look had none of that. I was trying to think of ways to work more color into the outfit when I had my grand idea.

Garden of Eden!

Was it the snakeskin texture on the shoes that inspired me? The pair of snake earrings I found in my Unworn Jewelry Basket? The idea to add some flowers to the dress? I can no longer remember what came first, but before long, I had taken a vague idea and turned it into the most literal interpretation of a theme I think I've ever done, short of a Halloween costume.

To the neckline of the dress, I quickly stitched a couple of fabric flowers I'd salvaged from a friend's old tank top. They add texture, color, and a supporting floral element to the garden-variety botanical print, and they'll be easily removable when I inevitably grow bored with them after one wear.

The shoes, as already discussed, have a snakeskin design, which calls to mind the Biblical serpent. I also put on two snake earrings, even though there is only one serpent in the Garden of Eden story, because I guess every exploration of a theme is allowed a little bit of artistic license. As for the other star players in the tale? Well, you can just call me Eve.

Slow Burn

You only need to take one look at this shirt to know I would love it! It's bright! It's got curlicues! It's tailored and sophisticated! It's sleeveless for summer comfort! And to top it all off, it has a unique old-timey oriental aesthetic with its loop-and-button closure and mandarin collar. Of course I loved it, but you would not believe the work I had to put in to make it wearable!

Being what I deem another relic of the 90's, the sizing on this shirt is a little smaller than that of the present day, making it just a tad too tight around the bust. The buttons, which connected the two sides of the shirt with nary an overlap, allowed it to gape most indecently. An easy fix would be to simply wear another layer underneath it, but that would make it tighter and hotter, which is exactly what I don't want in a summer blouse.

Fortunately, almost all the openings were finished with a large fabric facing, so I felt like I should be able to use that in some way to create a mock inner layer that would only cover the button placket. I tried ironing it in place with no success, then I decided to use snaps.

First, I had to make the facing into a movable flap. I used buttonhole stitching to prevent fraying, and cut it free after the raw edges were thus enclosed.

One snap at the top holds the flap to the inside of the other half.

Now when I wear the blouse, the buttons still gape, but there is a matching piece of fabric behind them to keep everything prim and proper.

It took me months to discover and complete this alteration, and then weeks more before I felt the time was right for a bright red-and-orange top. It looked so fierce and fiery, I didn't want to squander it on just any old day—meanwhile, it was practically burning a hole in my closet!

When I finally did decide to wear it, it ended up being just any old day after all. It was today.

But before I took it out into the world, I had to fix another problem with the fit! Like many late-90's tops, this one was cut short...and while the bust had been a little too tight, there was still plenty of room—too much room—at the bottom end of it.

It flared out slightly above my hips, and I don't know about you, but I hate shirts that do that! Something about that gap skews my proportions in ways I don't even want to waste my time describing. But I will describe a way to deal with it!

The no-sew solution for a too-wide blouse

I think shirts look best when they create a smooth line from waist to hips, with no gap between the shirt and pants. However, If you have a tailored blouse that isn't tailored to your exact proportions, you may find that the bottom portion is too wide and/or too high above your hips.

One solution (and one that I use often) is to tailor the back or sides so they align precisely with your own unique curves.

But stitchcraft isn't always the answer to every problem! You can also simply fill in the gaps with other clothing!

I like to do this with a voluminous skirt worn at the waist. This adds tons of bulk to your hips, banishing the awkward-looking gap like it was never there!

Today, I chose my black tulle skirt to do the job. I felt like black was a good pairing with the shirt, evoking charred wood while the shirt evoked flame.

The blue hair is perhaps a tiny bit incongruous, but I wasn't about to let my new dye job stand in the way of my chosen outfit! I figure you can interpret the hair two ways—either as bluish smoke rising from a conflagration, or as water coming to douse it. Either way, this outfit tells a story!

These pants are Fire

 

One of my early purchases from Swap.com was a pair of palazzo pants that I thought, from the picture, would be red. When they arrived, I was somewhat astonished to find they were actually orange, wound through with glittery gold thread. Clearly far too flashy for everyday use, even for an Unfashionista, they sat in my closet for months. I spent several of those months buying and rejecting tops to wear with them, as I'd decided only a gold top without too much sparkle of its own would do (the top I wore with my gold star boots was one that didn't quite make the cut). 

 

Once I finally had a gold top that I liked, I had to find an occasion to wear the pants. They seemed too glittery for serious occasions, but too formal for bars and clubs, so it was a while before circumstances were right.

The circumstances were: the afterparty for the opening of the Burning-Man-themed Smithsonian exhibit. The palazzo-pants-based outfit seemed to me like just the sort of thing an eccentric rich old lady would wear to a gallery opening. Of course, then I learned that the friend who had invited me planned to wear his skin-tight tie-dye pants. Clearly "too flashy" wasn't going to be an issue, but I began to question whether I should redirect my vibe more towards "partying artist" than "flamboyant arts patron"...until suddenly, I had a revelation.

Flamboyant – root flam – suspiciously similar to flame – was exactly what I needed to bring to this gathering of Burners (the creative community responsible for the Burning Man festival as well as the night's festivities). What better pair of pants could I choose than the ones that veritably glowed like fire!?

Apparently I was not the only one to decide on orange pants that night.

Despite my lack of originality in the clothing department, I made up for it in the posing department. After I took one last parting shot with this enormous bear sculpture, apparently a whole group of other people were inspired to do the same....That's the rumor I heard at least—far be it from me to bask in the glow of my own brilliant ideas.

Modern Gatsby

The dress code for the D.C. Distillers' Festival was "Modern Gatsby." What does that mean?, I mused. I'm sure it meant that I should dress with a nod to the 1920's, but how much of a nod? How much modern and how much Gatsby would be right for this party?

Fortunately, unlike many of my night-out decisions, this one didn't take me very long. I have a 1920's-inspired dress that I bought last spring, planning to wear it to Repeal Day, which we have gone to every year since 2014. We did not go this year. Consequently, my fringed sequined dress has been sitting in bag in my closet for months. Rather than let it sit any longer, I decided to go as full-on Gatsby as possible.

To go with the dress, I had a similar sequined headband, which I'd bought on clearance and which had also been waiting in the closet for months.

My handsome mobster in the background

I didn't have any appropriate Prohibition-era shoes, so I went with my low-heeled silver glitter ones, because one can never go wrong with glitter, and I liked the idea of actually being able to walk around without pain!

I couldn't do much to make my growing-out hair look much like a proper flapper bob, so I tried to make up for it with my makeup. Darkly shadowed eyes with as much underline as I could dare, and my best approximation of a cupid's-bow lip.

Yes, by this time the eyeshadow has smudged,
and I've put too much lipstick on the outer
edges of my lower lip, but I tried!

I think the outfit was a good choice. Most of the attendees were wearing similar getups, and I even got a compliment from the burlesque dancer. That's how you know you've succeeded—when someone who gets paid to wear a costume has something nice to say about yours!