Go-To Outfit

Friday, March 25, 2011

If you could wear anything you wanted, what would it be? Would you pull out the same thing each time? Or would you pull out something different? Would it be something dressy? Or something casual?

Before I started writing this blog -- or really before I started taking my picture every day, I would have said that that my "go-to" outfit would have been a pair of jeans (or comfy sweats) and a t-shirt. If I was just going to stay around the house, then it would definitely be sweats, but if I was going to venture out, then I would get changed into a pair of jeans.

I loved casual Friday at work for that reason -- I could wear my go-to outfit. I could wear what I was comfortable in -- I could wear jeans. Yay!

shirt -- Variations

belt (thrifted)

jeans -- Lee (thrifted)

blazer -- Old Navy (thrifted)

boots -- Nomad (thrifted)

Today I was shocked to realize that I didn't want to wear jeans! Wow -- what happened? It's Friday, and I didn't want to wear jeans! I am having so much fun in getting dressed up lately, that I didn't want to wear jeans today. You can't really do anything different with them. I mean, I tried, but I couldn't really come up with anything that was a little different -- that would make wearing jeans a little bit more exciting. 

I tried wearing a scarf -- aggh ... talk about feeling all bulked up. I played around with wearing a belt, and with wearing boots -- nada. zip. It just felt boring.

What is a jean-loving girl woman to do?

Price Point

Friday, March 4, 2011

How much are you willing to pay for a pair of jeans? 

 
This past week, I received a newsletter that listed six pairs of jeans that were the author's favorites. The newsletter, I might add, is aimed at every woman -- from college students to new moms -- and is supposed to have smart, simple tips for feeling good from the inside out. 

So, anyway, the author's jeans were $11.97, $79.90, $158, $158, $167, and $220. I was gobsmacked at those prices! In her defense, the author did say that some of the ones she had listed were expensive, but she also said that she had a couple of steals. But still, there was only one pair of jeans that was under $50! Seriously, does she consider $80 for a pair of jeans a steal? Is this the status quo? Am I the one who is way off base?

I know that I don't spend a whole lot of money on clothes. I tend to buy something when it's on sale, and I try, whenever I can, to get the best deal that I can. I don't shop in high-end boutiques, and I'll buy clothes at thrift stores, and so on. But I also tend to have expensive taste. 

Sometimes, and unfortunately for my pocket book, I even have very expensive taste. 

So even though I may buy my clothes cheaply, my clothes aren't cheap. I'm not saying that I have all designer brands, because a lot of my clothes are from discount stores. But discount clothes can be made well.* Just because something is cheap, doesn't mean that it is necessarily of an inferior quality. I'm also not about to sacrifice fit or comfort in my clothes for the sake of saving a couple of dollars. And whereas you can sometimes save money by buying cheaper quality clothes, that's not true for jeans. I simply wear them too often to not have comfortable, nice-looking jeans that are not going to hold up. 

That being said, I don't think that I've ever paid paid more than $30 for a pair of jeans. And I don't think that I could ever -- no matter how well they fit -- pay more than $50. There are just too many alternatives that fit me well and are not expensive, and they are jeans, for crying out loud!  

You be the judge. Are my jeans fabulous? or are they frumpy and ill-fitting? I think these were $39.50 (plus it was a buy one, get one at half off).


*I sewed a lot of my own clothes when I was growing up, so I can tell if a dress or a shirt is made well. And sometimes you don't need something that is going to last forever, sometimes you just need an item that will serve your purpose.

shirt -- Cherokee (thrifted)

jeans -- Morgan (Delia*s)

shoes -- Dansko (outlet)

belt -- handmade in Guatemala (thrifted)

Some more goofy pictures -- just having fun. 

Borrowing a Page

Friday, February 25, 2011

I've been working a lot this past week -- overtime at my 9 to 5 job* as well as some freelance jobs. And then instead of going to sleep when I got home from work, I've been surfing the Internet. By Friday morning, I was exhausted.

I crawled into bed at 5 am, after setting the alarm for a scant 4 hours later. Needless to say, when that alarm went off at 9 am, I was not very anxious to get out of bed -- to get moving, let alone figure out what to wear to work or get dressed. The one saving grace, however, was that it was Friday, casual Friday, which meant I could wear jeans! I never have a problem figuring out what to wear with jeans! It's easy, and I can wear almost anything with jeans.

I was kind of feeling down in the dumps -- probably a combination of being very tired and looking out the window and seeing the weather. It was gray out -- rainy and overcast. And then I had a flash of inspiration! 

I decided to take a page from Jentine's style book. Jentine is this amazing wonder thrifter, with an awesome sense of personal style. You can catch her finds over at My Edit. This past week, she suggested pairing fancy sequin tops with a pair of jeans in her Thrift Thursday post. What a great idea!

Jentine from My Edit

Isn't this great? I don't have the fancy sequin tops that she has, but I did have a beaded camisole that I bought maybe 10 years ago and never wore -- I don't know what occasion I have been saving it for. So I figured why not wear it, under a blazer, with my jeans?! The minute I thought of that, my mood lifted! It just seemed like kind of a fun thing to do. 

* My job doesn't have your typical "9-to-5" hours -- I typically work the 2 pm to 10:30 pm shift, with a 30-minute break for dinner. However, even those hours aren't cut in stone, and they can be switched on almost a daily basis. This week, it has been noon to 10 pm. The shifting shift hours makes it pretty rough on the body. And with the overtime and extra work, it just seems like all I was doing was sleeping (barely), eating, and working. 

It didn't end up looking the way it did in my head -- I didn't realize that the blazer was so big on me, but it was still a lot of fun to wear, and I felt comfortable wearing it. And now I have a better idea of how to wear it the next time. The bar has been set.

The funny thing was that I thought the guys at my office (I work with almost all guys) were going to give me a lot of grief about my top, but they didn't pay it any mind. It was my shoes that caught their attention! They loved my Chuck Taylors! They saw them, and immediately started reminiscing about their youth.They were actually disappointed that I wore a pair of black socks and not a pair of white sweat socks.

I had to post this picture of my cleavage. The last time I had cleavage like this, I was nursing my kids. I can't believe that menopause affected this part of my body!

 camisole -- P phosphorus (Marshalls)

blazer -- Miley Cyrus & Maz Azria (thrifted)

belt -- Aeropostale (thrifted?)

pants -- The Limited

sneakers -- Chuck Taylor Converse All Star (Zappos)

Frankenstein

Friday, February 4, 2011

shirt -- White Stag

pants -- The Limited (thrifted)

shoes -- Dansko (left behind)

I call the shoes that I'm wearing in this picture my Frankenstein shoes, because they're so big and clunky. I feel like I go clomp, clomp, clomp and that I tower over everybody* when I walk around in them -- sort of how I envision Frankenstein. But the similarity ends there, because they are super comfortable shoes. They are also very warm shoes -- they are a bit too big for me, so I can wear heavy socks with them. When I was packing for Europe last winter, these shoes made the cut, and I wore them almost every day, traipsing around Brussels.

They are Danskos, and I'm not sure where I got them from. I didn't buy them, even though the Dansko outlet is a few miles from my house and even though I'm a huge Dansko fan. I'm pretty sure that one of the students who rented a room in my house left them behind when she moved out, and like the scavenger that I am, I kept them. I'm glad that she left them. I wear them a lot, with jeans and mostly in the winter, when big clunky shoes don't look so silly.  

I am a huge scavenger -- between trying to save money and trying to save the Earth, I try to reuse and repurpose as many things as I can. I'm always looking for new ideas on how to reuse things. I love to shop at garage sales, yard sales, thrift stores, secondhand stores, flea markets, and so on. I use Freecycle, and I've even been known to pick up things that were sitting out on the curb. 

I used to be somewhat embarrassed by that -- but lately it seems that my habits or tendencies are being embraced by more and more people. I've even come across new words being coined -- trashion (a fancy way of saying fashionable trash) and upcycled (a fancy way of saying recycling your trash into something that can be used again). I don't know if this is because of the economy, because more people are becoming more environmentally conscious, or because the Internet has given us a way to become more socially acceptable -- you know, there's more power in numbers. For whatever reason, it's pretty cool.

*I'm only 5'4", so even with my Frankenstein shoes on, I still don't tower over anybody!