Z is for Zigzag

Hooray, my 26-day fashion challenge is finally at an end, and I couldn't be more in the mood for a celebration!

I went all out with the most zany pants in my collection, but the word of the day wasn't zany—it was zigzags.

The pants are well-endowed in the zigzag department, but never stop at one item if you can theme your whole outfit!

I found a shirt that matched the colors in the pants (not difficult since every color is in the pants!) and dressed it up to be a better version of itself, using the drawstring from the hood (let's face it; who actually ever used the hood on their hooded sweaters?) to make it into a trendy lace-up V-neck. But in keeping with my theme, instead of using two laces in a crisscross design, I used just one one in a zigzag all the way across the neck.

I couldn't resist putting my hair into a zigzag part, which I last remember seeing around the time I graduated high school—but apparently it's trendy again, just in time to put the finishing touch on my Z-day look!

Speaking of finishing touches, if you look closely, you can see the real icing on the cake: the zigzag shaped earrings that I manufactured just for the occasion!

Y is for Young

If you follow fashion writing, you are led to believe that thirty is a magical age, at which you suddenly become an old woman. After 30, your body is disgusting, and you should dress to be invisible. If you wanted to have any fun with your clothing, you better have done it in your 20's, because before 30, being tasteful is optional; after 30, it's mandatory. Such is the takeaway from countless articles purporting to explain what you should and shouldn't wear at various ages.

I have a lot to say on the subject of policing what people wear – mostly critical – and some day I'll get around to writing my long-planned soliloquy on ageism in fashion.

Today, you'll just get the short version—a sort of real-life protest against the oppression of dressing for one's age.

I've selected an outfit made from various elements that have been written off as inappropriate for women over 30 (which I am). Today (and actually many days, according to the exhaustive lists of things no self-respecting 30-year-old should don), I'm dressing "too young for my age," and I'm doing it with pride!*

Before (backwards mirror shot)

The first thing I absolutely had to wear was my new T-shirt with the giant word "YAY!" screen printed across the front (getting the most bang for my buck with another Y-word). Not only did one article ban screen printed shirts for mature women (I can't even begin to see the logic in that one), and another one prohibit "message" shirts, but I literally picked this shirt up from a kids' shop (it's the second of two pieces that I mentioned getting from Fab Kids—the other one being a tutu, which was of course on a no-no list as well). This shirt fit me pretty well, except across my oversized shoulders, of course! I had to do a quick mod, slitting the sleeves up the center and turning them into flutter sleeves, which made the shirt even more fun, in my opinion.

There's nothing too youthful about my jeans (though apparently in some not-so-distant past, jeans were considered the exclusive province of the young as well), but the shoes under them check any number of boxes, as "costume shoes" were decried in one list for the above-30 set, and there's little more costumey than a pair of 5-inch-high glitter platform wedges.

At this point, I still didn't think I'd achieved a convincingly "young" vibe, so I had to resort to hair, makeup, and accessories to finish the job.

Though pigtails surprisingly didn't make it into any of the lists I found online, they are pretty much the quintessential little-girl hairdo, so I somehow scraped my very short locks into two ponytails. I chose gold roses for my earrings because I wanted something gold (to go with the shoes and printing on the shirt), but still a little playful.

One of the publications I read also claimed that older women should not wear blue eyeshadow. They did not explain why, but guess what I put on my eyelids! Blue! I also wore bubble-gum pink lip gloss and sprayed myself liberally with my most juvenile Paris Hilton perfume.

When I wore this outfit out to dinner, no one gave me the side-eye and told me I was dressing too young, but as soon as I took off my coat, a bartender exclaimed how much she loved my shirt and wanted to know where I got it. So while it may be totally inappropriate for an adult over 30 to wear hot pants, fishnets, tube tops, miniskirts, bodycon dresses or any number of other things, you're never too old for Yay!

*I will admit that the first outfit I chose for today's theme was so extreme, I ended up looking like a caricature of a teenager circa 2001. As much as I advocate dressing for one's self and not for some arbitrary set of rules, I still didn't have the guts to sport my gaudy and slightly revealing outfit for dinner with my boyfriend's family (though I would have totally risked it if we were just going out alone). So I toned it down to what you see here. Moral of this story: sometimes you can't always break the rules with pride, even if you support it in theory.

X is for X-mas

 

Thank you, endless holiday parties, for legitimizing my excessively seasonal outfit choice today!

There's nothing explicitly Christmasy about it, just a lot of green and red, which ordinarily I wouldn't wear together.

The whole reason for the outfit's being is the shoes, which I purchased on eBay for around 10 dollars. I was so excited when I saw such unique shoes at such a unbeatable price! There were many color choices, but I went with green because I had been wanting some green flats. I neglected to consider how being emblazoned with a huge red flower might diminish the coordinate-ability of the shoes, but once I got them, that problem came perfectly clear. I've owned the shoes for a couple of months and only today finally was able to wear them.

I happened to have a green sweater that almost perfectly matches the green in the shoes, so I wore that, along with a pair of dark jeans because it's Friday (lately, in kind of a backflip, I've been all about wearing jeans at the office whenever possible. I guess it gets old trying to make skirts work in winter)!

Red jewelry rounded out the outfit—I wore an embellished metal bracelet and a crimson beaded necklace. My favorite subtle touch was the millefiori earrings, which I've had for ages but usually only get out at Christmas time.

Bonus! In the evening, I went to another party—a holiday gala, where I kept the green and red theme, but toned it down for the more sophisticated occasion.

A black dress with a burgundy bodice provided the red (I also saw fit to choose a dress with X's in its construction), while my pale green clutch bag (and my hair) provided the green. Wishing my green and red to be so subtle as to almost go unnoticed, I went minimal with my jewelry, only wearing a tiny peridot necklace and even tinier stud earrings. Sorry, they're so subtle you can't really appreciate them in the picture, but in my haste to get ready, I forgot to get any closeup shots.

You my loyal readers, are the only people to ever see this outfit, because the venue for the holiday gala was so cold that I never took off my coat the entire night! What a waste of a beautiful X's for X-mas dress!

W is for Winter White

After doing Fall Florals for F-Day, it was only natural for me to do Winter Whites for W-Day.

What makes winter whites different from regular old whites? Though you'd be hard-pressed to find "winter white" defined in the dictionary, there is a pretty strong consensus among the people who use the term that "winter white" refers to a color that's simply off-white. I like to include very light greys in my definition of winter white, but if you consult Pantone, the foremost authority on colors, you'll see they have given it to a very far-off-white shade of ecru.

Really, though, any white you wear in winter has to be winter white! And if you wear it with furry boots, it's as wintry as it gets! These boots are the last of my three Black Friday shoe purchases, and I waited with extreme impatience for W-Day so I could finally wear them. There's little I love so much as a furry boot in winter!

The boots really do fit the definition of "winter white," but the pants are just your average, everyday, pure white (and miraculously so, since I've worn them enough times that I'd expect them to have a stain or two by now).

The tank top is a nice creamy Pantone-approved winter white, and the cardigan, is, again, a "normal" white. I wore a white lace bracelet, and, to further support my "winter" theme, a pair of snowflake earrings.

V is for Velvet

Ah, finally, after that day of dressing like the Woman that Time Forgot, I was free to cast off my artifacts and embrace a current trend! Not just current, but blazing, smoking hot (and also warm!)

It's velvet!

Every fashion publication from here to everywhere has been hammering into my head that velvet is the fabric of the season. Fortunately, they started said hammering way back in the summer, giving me plenty of time to stock up on two new velvet dresses from Swap.com and a skirt from the thrift store (in addition to the blue dress I've had forever—I'm such an early adopter!).

Today, I'm wearing the first of the new dresses—a highly ornate velvet shift with slightly flared sleeves, in black and various shades of red.

Had fate not intervened, that would have been the extent of my velvet getup, but then I found the JustFab Black Friday sale. I filled up my cart with my olive ankle-strap flats, one more mystery shoe which I'm sure you'll see soon, and these burgundy crushed velvet sandals. They also came in blue, which I wanted so bad, but since I've somehow filled up my closet with red things this year, I thought the burgundy was a more sensible choice. I figured I'd wear them for a more formal occasion (where sandals make sense, even in the middle of winter), but then V-day came around.

Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than rocking a velvet sock boot (they're everywhere!), but alas, I haven't found one in my price range yet. So it was velvet sandals or bust. I tried them with tights and I tried them with thigh-highs (even for the sake of fashion, I won't sacrifice my toes to the gods of winter!), but eventually I decided sandals over knee socks was the cutest (although admittedly unconventional) way to finish off this outfit.

An Aside: Were you, like me, an avid fan of The Velveteen Rabbit when you were a kid? Did you ever wonder just what the heck velveteen is and what makes it different from velvet? And, for that matter, what velour is? Well, wonder no more, because I did the research for you! Most of the answers I found were quite confusing, which is why I felt like this answer on Quora (which admits that they "defy categorization") was the most satisfying. Basically the only thing that's constant about any of it is that velveteen is made from cotton, feels stiff, and has a short pile. As for the others, anything seems to go, so, in my expert opinion, you are safe referring to any shiny-ish fabric with a short furry pile as either velvet or velour, and no one would be able to contradict you unequivocally.

U is for Unfashionable

Apologies for the blurriness—
attempting to manually focus on a person who isn't there, while your camera's LCD is
obscured by the pile of stuff it's precariously perched on, does not make for a great shot!

I struggled to find an outfit for the letter U, since its usage seems predominantly limited to the less pleasant words in life—words like ugly, unkempt, unclean, and underwear. Also unfashionable. I call myself the "Unfashionista," so it stands to reason that at least some of my clothes would be less than trendy. As long as you look good in it or it makes a statement, I'm always in favor of wearing something a little outdated or just plain odd.

But have I ever assembled a whole outfit out of the outdated and odd? Well, as a matter of fact, I did just last week, for my "Quirky" outfit. While that ensemble was calculated to include my most outlandish clothes and accessories in the goofiest combination possible (while still trying to look semi-sane for my employers), today's will be focused on clothing that was once stylish but has gone out of favor, or has never really been in favor at all!

I started with the shoes. These shoes have extra-long pointy toes that are certainly not trendy now, but were for a brief period during a time when I wasn't paying attention to fashion. More on the intricacies of toe lengths in my footnote (get it?) below!* They also have kitten heels, which are always a topic of hot contention among the fashion set. Oddly enough, while these shoes would have been solidly "unfashionable" a year and a half ago, the tides are currently turning in their favor, with more and more kitten heels and longer toes making an appearance.

The pants, on the other hand, are no one's definition of stylish, and might never have been. They are a short-legged, slightly flared (boot cut), grey corduroy. They're also by Faded Glory, a bargain brand of dubious distinction. My former housemate abandoned them in 2012, and they've been, since then, what I wear when I want to be comfortable and warm, but never when I want to make a great impression! Their stumpy legs aren't a great pairing with the elongated shoes, and neither is brown + grey a particularly popular color combo, but in this case it was perfect, because the next unfashionable item on my list was my cardigan/duster/sweater coat that just happens to be brownish-grey!

This style of ruffly sweater seemed to enjoy a lot of popularity right in the middle of my organic market days (I had a coworker who wore one pretty much constantly), but presently it's all about clean lines, oversized silhouettes, and a slightly masculine vibe. That doesn't stop me; I wanted a knee-length cardigan, so I just bought this sweater (used) a few weeks ago!

Under the outmoded sweater is a plain brown camisole. I don't think basics like this will ever go out of style; the only reason I chose this particular garment is that I needed something to tie in with the brown shoes.

Next, jewelry. I have heard through the grapevine that the statement necklace is dead—and you only have to look through a few pictures of stylish people to realize this is true; anyone worth their fashion salt has already moved on to delicate metal pieces and chokers. But, oh, those heady years of huge colorful plastic-and-metal necklaces will live on forever in my memory...and, let's not kid ourselves, in my day-to-day style. I'm going to wear my statement necklaces from now until eternity! But now, at least, I'm ready to admit that they are unfashionable. Especially when their curiously bright colors clash so strongly with the muted tones of the clothes around them. 

Related note: this fashion challenge has had me wearing a whole lot more plain old browns, blacks, beiges, and greys than I would like, but I guess it's natural to gravitate to neutrals when you have to continually create cohesive themed outfits out of all the unrelated separates you have in your closet.

So there you have it. A 4-piece outfit assembled exclusively from the embarrassingly out-of-date. It pained me a little to step out entirely clad in history's rejects, but, I did it (paradoxically) for fashion!

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* Ready for a digression? Here you go: As I have recently mentioned, I have never been into shoes with long toes. Even when I was a kid, I had a strong aversion to women's pointy-toed shoes. That might have been a bit of my mom's influence, since I think she also opposed them, though perhaps that was more for comfort reasons than stylistic ones. My own opinion on pointy toes was that they just added inches to the end of your foot, making it look long and ridiculous (more recently I discovered that pointy toes can be very artfully designed to end just past your real toes, and I don't have the same distaste for these more subtly pointed toes—in fact, I now even recommend them for when you want to look sophisticated). Since I already had a bit of an insecurity about the huge size of my feet (which, at an 8.5 - 9, are actually perfectly average, even downright dainty relative to my height, which is slightly above average—but insecurities do not listen to reason), the last thing I wanted to do was wear shoes which made them look even bigger. So when pointy toes gave way in the late 90's to monstrous clodhoppers, I was an enthusiastic adopter! The overall proportions of a huge platform completely disguised the length of my foot, making me feel like I had small feet. In fact, I loved chunky shoes so much that I wore them well into the era when they were no longer stylish. Apparently in the early-to-mid-2000's, really long pointy toes were once again at the height of fashion (I judge this based exclusively on promo shots for the 2004 Mean Girls movie), but I totally missed that! Fortunately, I still got my chance (whether I wanted it or not) to rock the saber-toe look when a friend's sister gave me a pair of hers from what I assume was that era. I was about to re-donate the long-toed foot-pinchers when it occurred to me that they might be the subject of a very interesting craft project. So I kept them around, and all of a sudden, they were the perfect shoe for my U-day! End of digression.

T is for Tutu

This tutu has a backstory. Not a very interesting one, but I'm going to tell it anyway, because how else would I fill my whole post up with unnecessary narrative?

There's this website I shop from called JustFab. When I joined them (they operate on a membership system, albeit one that you don't have to pay for as long as you remember to "skip" every month), they only sold shoes, but they keep expanding their operations. A few years ago, they suckered me into joining their newish (then) "Fabletics" site for workout clothes with an offer of 5$ leggings (their regular prices are definitely too expensive for a monthly membership, but the leggings are the best pair of athletic pants I've ever owned). More recently, they started their "Fab Kids" line, which as you might be able to guess, is for children's clothing. With no kids in my life and no intention to change that, I had zero interest in buying from Fab Kids, but they kept emailing me special offers, until finally they made me an offer I couldn't refuse: my first outfit free! I'd only have to pay 4.95$ shipping. 

Well, I've worn clothes from the kids' department before (one of my favorite coats ever was a girls' XL), so I checked to see whether their size range could accommodate my adult frame, and it turned out that it could! So I joined Fab Kids. I figured, at 4.95$ for 2 garments, even if the endeavor was a complete failure, I'd have a nice new outfit to donate to a clothing drive at hardly any expense.

Fab Kids allows you to save a profile for the kid you are shopping for, so I invented myself a "daughter." Her name is Fern, she is 16, wears a size XXL, and is now the proud owner of a Fab Kids skirt and T-shirt.

Today, I'm wearing the skirt. The website referred to it as a "tutu." I usually reserve that word for a skirt with a little more volume, but it was made of tulle, so it fits the T-theme regardless of what you call it.

I paired the tutu with my glittery purple shirt, purple earrings, and purple shoes. The look is a little overly festive for a typical Monday (shall I say it's "too too?"), but it's the holiday season, so I can just say I'm wearing it to yet another workplace party.

EDITOR'S NOTE: All links to shopping websites in this post contain my personal referral link! If you do decide to shop from any of these websites, we both share great benefits if you join from my personal link.